Byron leads Hendrick Motorsports to 1-2-3 finish at Martinsville on anniversary weekend

William Byron took the lead with 73 laps to go and held onto it during a two-lap overtime finish Sunday to enhance Hendrick Motorsports' celebration of its 40-year anniversary of its first victory in racing with a victory in the NASCAR Cup Series at Martinsville Speedway.

Byron, the first of the contenders to pit under a green flag with 104 laps to go, moved to the front 31 laps later and was never threatened after getting the jump at the start of overtime. It was his third win this season, and his second on the 0.526-mile, paper-clip shaped oval.

He stayed on the track when John Hunter Nemechek crashed in turn three with three laps to go and then held off teammates Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson after the final green flag. It marked the first 1-2-3 finish for any team in Martinsville's long history hosting stock car races.

Larson rallied to finish second, Elliott third, Bubba Wallace fourth and Ryan Blaney fifth.

The race featured long green flag runs, with two of the five cautions pre-planned at the end of stages one and two. There were 13 lead changes among eight drivers.

The victory was the 305th for Hendrick teams and its 29th at NASCAR’s smallest, oldest track, a record for an organization at any venue. Geoff Bodine had the first one win at Martinsville on April 29, 1984. It convinced team owner Rick Hendrick not to fold his fledgling. struggling team.

All four Hendrick cars featured ruby red paint schemes, marking the anniversary.

The Hendrick organization hosted more than 1,000 current and former employees for the race, but the owner was not able to attend, having recently undergone knee replacement surgery.

Larson, the defending race winner and pole-sitter, led all 80 laps in the first stage. Joey Logano gambled by taking right side tires only during pit stops after the stage and led the first 83 laps of green-flag racing in the second stage before Denny Hamlin passed him to win the stage.

TOUGH DAY

Christopher Bell, who began the race sixth in points and already with a victory, went three laps down early, gained one back after stage two stops, then spun out early in the final stage, bringing out the fourth caution. He finished 35th out of 37 drivers, four laps down.

UP NEXT

The series move across the country to Texas Motor Speedway, where the drivers hope the repaved track will have cured some to allow for more passing since the repave.

AP NASCAR: https://apnews.com/hub/nascar-racing

Drivers race around the track during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Joey Logano (22) leads Bubba Wallace (23) and Kyle Larson (5) and others during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Drivers race around the track during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (47) tries to pull into his pit as Carson Hocevar (77), Ty Gibbs (54) and Zane Smith (71) try to drive past during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Denny Hamlin (11) leads Bubba Wallace (23) out of Turn 4 during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Chase Elliott (9) leads David Starr (66) out of Turn 4 during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Bubba Wallace (23) leads Kyle Larson (5) out of Turn 4 during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

William Byron (24) leads Alex Bowman (48) out of Turn 4 during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Joey Logano (22) leads Todd Gilliland (38) and Chase Briscoe (14) out of Turn 4 during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Chase Briscoe (14) drives out of Turn 4 during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

William Byron celebrates in Victory Lane after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

William Byron celebrates after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

William Byron, center, celebrates with crew members in Victory Lane after receiving the trophy for winning the NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — When Ademola Adesina founded a startup to provide solar and battery-based power subscription packages to individuals and businesses in Nigeria in 2015, it was a lot harder to raise money than it is today.

Climate tech was new in Africa, the continent was a fledgling destination for venture capital money, there were fewer funders to approach and less money was available, he said.

It took him a year of “running around and scouring” his networks to raise his first amount — just under $1 million — from VC firms and other sources. “Everything was a learning experience,” he said.

But the ecosystem has since changed, and Adesina’s Rensource Energy has raised about $30 million over the years, mostly from VC firms.

Funding for climate tech startups in Africa from the private sector is growing, with businesses raising more than $3.4 billion since 2019. But there’s still a long way to go, with the continent requiring $277 billion annually to meet its climate goals for 2030.

Experts say to unlock financing and fill this gap, African countries need to address risks like currency instability that they say reduce investor appetite, while investors need to expand their scope of interest to more climate sectors like flood protection, disaster management and heat management, and to use diverse funding methods.

Still, the investment numbers for the climate tech sector — which includes businesses in renewable energy, carbon removal, land restoration and water and waste management — are compelling: Last year, climate tech startups on the continent raised $1.04 billion, a 9% increase from the previous year and triple what they raised in 2019, according to the funding database Africa: The Big Deal. That was despite a decline in the amount of money raised by all startups in total on the continent last year.

That matters because climate tech requires experimentation, and VC firms that provide money to nascent businesses are playing an essential role by giving climate tech startups risk capital, said Adesina. “In the climate space, a lot of things are uncertain,” he said.

The money raised by climate tech startups last year was more than a third of all funds raised by startups in Africa in 2023, placing climate tech second to fintech, a more mature sector.

Venture capital is typically given to businesses with substantial risk but great long-term growth potential. Startups use it to expand into new markets and to get products and services on the market.

Venture capitalists “can take risks that other people cannot take, because our business model is designed to have failures,” said Brian Odhiambo, a Lagos-based partner at Novastar Ventures, an Africa-focused investor. “Not everything has to succeed. But some will, and those that do will succeed in a massive way.”

That was the case for Adetayo Bamiduro, co-founder of Metro Africa Xpress, which makes electric two- and three-wheelers and electric vehicle infrastructure in Nigeria and has raised just under $100 million since it was founded in 2015.

Adetayo said venture capitalists “are playing a catalytic role that is extremely essential.”

“We all know that in order to really decarbonize our economies, investments have to be made. And it’s not trivial investment,” he said.

The funds can also bridge the gap between traditional and non-traditional sectors, said Kidus Asfaw, co-founder and CEO of Kubik, a startup that turns difficult-to-recycle plastic waste into durable, low-carbon building material. His company, which operates in Kenya and Ethiopia, has raised around $4.6 million since it was launched in 2021.

He cites waste management and construction as examples of traditional sectors that can connect with startups like his.

“There’s so much innovation in these spaces that can transform them over time,” he said. “VCs are accelerating that pathway to transforming them.”

Besides venture capital, other investments by private equity firms, syndicates, venture builders, grant providers and other financial institutions are actively financing climate initiatives on the continent.

But private sector financing in general lags far behind that of public financing, which includes funds from governments, multilaterals and development finance institutions.

From 2019 to 2020, private sector financing represented only 14% of all of Africa’s climate finance, according to a report by the Climate Policy Initiative, much lower than in regions such as East Asia and Pacific at 39%, and Latin America and the Caribbean at 49%.

The low contribution in Africa is attributed to the investors putting money in areas they’re more familiar with, like renewable energy technology, with less funding coming in for more diverse initiatives, said Sandy Okoth, a capital market specialist for green finance at FSD Africa, one of the commissioners of the CPI study.

“The private sector feels this (renewable energy technology) is a more mature space,” he said. “They understand the funding models.”

Technology for adapting to climate change, on the other hand, is “more complex”, he said.

One startup working in renewable energy is the Johannesburg-based Wetility, which last year secured funding of $48 million — mostly from private equity — to expand its operations.

The startup provides solar panels for homes and businesses and a digital management system that allows users to remotely manage power usage, as it tries to solve the problems of energy access and reliability in southern Africa.

“Private sector financing in African climate is still rather low,” said founder and CEO Vincent Maposa. “But there’s visible growth. And I believe that over the next decade or so, you’ll start to see those shifts.”

Investors are also starting to understand the economic benefits of adapting to climate change and solutions as they have returns on investment, said Hetal Patel, Nairobi-based director of investments at Mercy Corps Ventures, an early-stage VC fund focused on startups building solutions for climate adaptation and financial resilience.

“We’re starting to build a very strong business case for adaptation investors and make sure that private capital flows start coming in,” he said.

Maëlis Carraro, managing partner at Catalyst Fund, a Nairobi-based VC fund and accelerator that funds climate adaptation solutions, urged more diverse funding, such as that which blends private and public sector funding. The role of public financing, she said, should be to de-risk the private sector and attract more private sector capital into financing climate initiatives.

“We’re not gonna go far enough with just the public funding,” she said. “We need the private sector and the public sector to work together to unlock more financing. And in particular looking beyond just a few industries where the innovation is writ large.”

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Oladapo Adekunle, an engineer with Rensource Energy, installs solar panels on a roof of a house in Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday, March 21, 2024. Funding for climate tech startups in Africa from the private sector is growing, but there's still a long way to go. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Oladapo Adekunle, an engineer with Rensource Energy, installs solar panels on a roof of a house in Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday, March 21, 2024. Funding for climate tech startups in Africa from the private sector is growing, but there's still a long way to go. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Oladapo Adekunle, an engineer with Rensource Energy, installs solar panels on a roof of a house in Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday, March 21, 2024. Funding for climate tech startups in Africa from the private sector is growing, but there's still a long way to go. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Oladapo Adekunle, an engineer with Rensource Energy, installs solar panels on a roof of a house in Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday, March 21, 2024. Funding for climate tech startups in Africa from the private sector is growing, but there's still a long way to go. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)