Last year’s Coca-Cola 600 winner saw his hopes for repeat come to an end early Sunday night. Ryan Blaney started 16th and was holding his own, finishing Stage 1 seventh. But a blown tire followed by a meeting with the wall on lap 148 shortly after a green flag stop sent his Penske Ford to pit road.
“We’ll have to look if I hit something or, I don’t know,” Blaney said. “I just went into three getting up to speed and blew a tire and hit the fence.”
The crew tried to effect repairs but the damage to the right front was too much. The crew unable to push the car off pit road, forced NASCAR to throw a caution on lap 159 for a tow truck that took the damaged car to the garage.
“It’s an unfortunate end to our night,” Blaney said. “That sucks. We’re not even halfway and just wanting to work on your stuff all night. I thought we were getting it a little better here and there, but won’t get a shot.”
It was Blaney’s second consecutive DNF in a points paying race coming on the heels of crash he was swept up in at Darlington.
“That’s two unfortunate weekends in a row,” he said. “I thought we at least had a shot to get better. I’d run close to the top 10 and maybe top five, but we’ll get through it. We’ve just got to hopefully put together a good race next week.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.