“He’s my good luck charm”: William Byron Insider speaks candidly on relationship with JGR rival

William Byron’s spotter, Branden Lines has opened up about his relationship with the rival competitive director of Joe Gibbs Racing, Chris Gabehart. The spotter referred to the former JGR chief as a “good luck charm”.

Lines is a veteran NASCAR spotter who currently spots for William Byron for Hendrick Motorsports. Lines began his career in the late 1990s. The spotter worked for JTG Daugherty’s Ryan Preece in 2021 before moving to HMS in 2022. Lines has been instrumental in bringing Byron to his back-to-back Daytona 500 success and also helped Ty Majeski win the championship in the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series in 2024.

Gabehart, the competitive director and former crew chief at Joe Gibbs Racing, started his racing career as a racer in go-karts. In 2012, the Indiana native joined JGR as a race engineer and transitioned to a role as a crew chief in the Xfinity Series. He moved up to become the crew chief for Denny Hamlin in the Cup Series, leading the team to significant success, including two Daytona 500 wins (2019 and 2020). Both the figures shared a friendship for 20 years and lived together for a while.

The William Byron spotter shared his relationship with Gabehart in a candid interview with NASCAR.com.

"And I used to say, this is my good luck charm in the garage. Cause every time I would come and find him (Chris Gabehart) in the garage, we would win, he would get this perfect, you know, so he would, he started avoiding me in the garage," mentioned Lines.

Lines also mentioned his time with Gabeheart and that he was the first person "who knew" him.

"We have been buddies or whatever we want to call it for 20 years, I guess. Yeah. We met at the end of 04 and it was just a short time. I mean, we're kind of short time that I lived there... So he was actually the first person that I, that seen me that like really knew me. So that was, that was pretty cool," he added.

Byron won the 2025 Great American Race with Branden Lines serving as the spotter for the race. This was his second consecutive win at the iconic Daytona International Speedway. He became only the fifth driver to achieve this feat of winning the race in consecutive seasons. The win was momentous and historic for his ability to rummage through the wreckage that occurred on the last lap with a finish of just 0.113 seconds ahead of Tyler Reddick in overtime. Byron will be hoping to add to this impressive feat in the coming races of the season.

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William Byron sounded uncertain about Jeff Gordon’s Daytona 500-winning Chevrolet’s NASCAR return

William Byron was a bit up in the air regarding the fate of his winning No. 24 Chevrolet, coming off his second Daytona 500 win in a row in 2025. A media session in the lead-up to the Atlanta Motor Speedway race gave Byron a chance to discuss whether such a car would go into the museum.

"That's a great question. I don't know.. I feel like it's probably going to go in the museum or something like that. I don't know.. I don't know if we're going to use that car again. With the Next Gen allotment, you can't really retire cars as often, so I'm not sure if we're going to retire it or race it again. It might be raced again.. we'll see," William Byron enthusiastically replied. (via Speedwaydigest.com)

The No. 24 holds a special significance due to Jeff Gordon's illustrious career with the number.