Late Caution Erases Potential Race-Winning Drive for Ryan Blaney

Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

After a disastrous five-race stretch without a single top-10 result, including three consecutive DNFs at Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Homestead, Ryan Blaney came to Darlington Raceway this past weekend just looking to finally turn his luck around.

With that in mind, a fifth-place finish is nothing to scoff at. However, considering how the events of the final laps unfolded in Sunday's Goodyear 400, the Team Penske driver has plenty of reasons to be frustrated.

RESULTS: Goodyear 400 at Darlington

"It was just a day where nothing really went our way. It's kind of crappy," Blaney said. "That part sucks about it. Your car is so fast, and we just kept having to make it up. It was like, 'Gosh, we have to come from 15th to the top three.' We just could never start at the front."

"I thought we were, by far, the best car, especially the second half of the race, and just had to keep playing catch-up, so we have to clean a few things up on our end, for sure, but I’m really proud of the effort. This is the best car I’ve ever had here. I thought Jonathan did a great job, but that stings. I really wanted to win here, and it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Throughout the event on Sunday, the driver of the No. 12 Ford Mustang Dark Horse possessed some of the best, if not the best, long-run speed on the racetrack, and after crew chief Jonathan Hassler elected to pit later in the green-flag cycle during the final stage, the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion also had the freshest tires.

With less than 50 laps remaining, the pit stop sequence finally settled out, and Blaney was sitting just outside the top-five, but a whopping 15-plus seconds behind race-leader Tyler Reddick.

The High Point, North Carolina-native quickly proved that making up time wasn't an issue, jumping into fourth-place and chasing down Christopher Bell and William Byron, who were battling for the runner-up spot more than six seconds behind Reddick.

In a heroic move, Blaney ended up passing both the No. 20 and No. 24 within a single lap, and then set his sights on reeling in the driver of the No. 45 Toyota Camry XSE, taking chunks of a half to three-quarters of a second per lap out of his advantage.

Within the final 10 laps of the race, Blaney had made up all of the necessary ground and was battling the McDonald's-sponsored entry for the race-lead, and with an aggressive move to the inside - and a slight bit of contact - the 13-time NASCAR Cup Series winner moved to the lead.

Though, the thing happening in his rearview mirror at that time, would ultimately be the same thing that cost him his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season.

As Tyler Reddick fell to second, the 23XI Racing driver slapped the Turn 2 wall, causing Kyle Larson (who was riding around 170 laps down after an early wreck) to hit the brakes quickly, and get spun around by an onrushing Bubba Wallace.

“If the caution didn’t come out, I thought we had it won easily,” said Blaney. “We were so much faster on newer tires. It was a great strategy call running long. Those guys short-pitted, and they were struggling real bad, and I thought if we could have just gotten off of two with the lead and the caution didn’t come out, I thought I was gonna ride off into the sunset.”

Even though Blaney was in the best position possible, pit stops had proven to be an issue for Blaney all afternoon, with his crew ranked 35th of 38 teams entering the final pit stop of the afternoon.

That problem unfortunately reared its ugly head again, with the No. 12 team having a slow pit stop, which dropkicked Blaney from the race-lead to fifth-place, effectively destroying any chance at a race-win.

However, despite the glaring issues on pit road throughout Sunday’s 400-miler, Blaney didn’t throw his crew under the bus, but rather suggested that there may be something for the team to work on moving forward.

“We’ve just got some things to work on. Hey, I make mistakes, I screw up a lot,” Blaney said. “These guys don’t have great stops every now and then, it’s just part of this sport, but they’ll go to work and figure out where they need to improve, just like we do with our race car. Where do we have to improve on that, so those guys do the same thing and try to come back even better.”

It's been a difficult stretch of races for Blaney, who has watched multiple NASCAR Cup Series wins slip through his fingertips over the last month or so, but, the Team Penske driver remains optimistic about the speed that the team has.