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Ryan Blaney Turns the Page on Frustrating Weekend at Las Vegas

Toby Christie

Nigel Kinrade, NKP for Ford Performance

If you listened to Ryan Blaney's team radio during last weekend's NASCAR Cup Series Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, you likely heard the driver have a meltdown at various points of the event. Honestly, it was understandable because it felt like anything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

From open to close, the Pennzoil 400 race weekend was a masterclass in frustration for the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion. In practice, Blaney suffered a cut tire, which sent his car backing into the outside wall.

The practice crash ended any hopes Blaney had of competing in Saturday's qualifying session, which meant he'd start at the rear in Sunday's race.

After helping his team complete the repairs on his No. 12 Ford Mustang Dark Horse on Saturday afternoon, Blaney began to claw his way back through the field quickly in Sunday's Pennzoil 400. The driver had worked his way inside of the top-15 when his crew chief Jeremy Bullins called him to pit road in an effort to short pit to gain additional track position as the remainder of the field pitted.

Unfortunately, Blaney's pit crew would struggle to get the left front tire off of their race car, which cost him valuable time, and after he returned to the track, a caution would come out for a detached wheel on Chase Briscoe's No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

The untimely caution would trap Blaney two laps down. The frustration continued to mount, but Blaney would utilize a wave around, and a subsequent free pass on Lap 108 to return to the lead lap of the race.

While running seventh with 73 laps to go, though, the potential rally was snuffed out as Blaney squeezed into Noah Gragson and Bubba Wallace in a four-wide battle with Christopher Bell down the backstretch. Blaney would crash hard and would see his race come to an end after completing 194 laps.

It was a frustrating weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for Blaney, no doubt, but the driver says he moved past the rough race weekend by the time he woke up on Monday morning.

"I try to move on quick," Blaney said during a media scrum session at a Goodyear Tire Test at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Tuesday. "It definitely stunk. I made a mistake, and I caused that deal on the backstretch in pinching Noah [Gragson] and Bubba [Wallace] into the fence."

The fact that he was at fault in the incident, which ended his day, and hampered the day of other drivers around him only compounded the frustration that Blaney felt.

"It stinks even more when you're the cause of it, it's like, 'Man, I really screwed up there, and ruined a couple of other guys' days as well as my own,' but I try to get over it like Monday morning," Blaney said. "I'll think about it Sunday night, go through it, and think about what I could have done differently and better. But then Monday, it's like [onto the] next task. What do we have next, and move on from there. No use dwelling on it as long as you learn from it, you can get over things quick."

With Blaney over last weekend's misfortunes, the focus shifts to Homestead-Miami Speedway, the site of Sunday's Straight Talk Wireless 400. Blaney comes into this weekend on a two-race runner-up finishing streak at the 1.5-mile track in South Florida.

And while he struggled at the track in his first few years in the NASCAR Cup Series, Blaney has learned what it takes to get around Homestead, and he has zeroed in on picking up a win at the track, which Blaney feels is one of the best on the schedule.

"It's one of the most fun places we go to," Blaney said of Homestead-Miami Speedway. "You know, anywhere you're really sliding the car around because not a lot of places we go, especially with this car, there's not really much side force on it. So, you can't really slide it as much, or you bust your tail. Homestead, you kind of get away with that stuff because the surface is old and stuff like that, and it's fairly smooth. So, yeah, it's definitely up there."

Blaney reiterated, "It's one of my favorites."

And it shows as Blaney has led 100 laps over his last two races at the facility, which is the most of any driver, and he's had 170 laps led there since the 2020 season, which trails just Kyle Larson (301 laps led) and Denny Hamlin (193).

Can he snag his first career win at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday? That remains to be seen, but over the next two weeks, Blaney has two really good tracks for him to potentially breakthrough for his first win of the season. Next week, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Martinsville Speedway, where Blaney has two wins over his last three starts.

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Toby Christie
TOBY CHRISTIE

Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.

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