For much of the closing laps of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Ryan Blaney was shining.
Blaney led a total of 54 laps and was in control of the lead with under 10 laps to go.
It all came undone with six laps to go.
Ross Chastain, subbing for the injured Ryan Newman, spun bringing out the race’s ninth and final caution. Blaney pitted along with several of the leaders. Logano however had a miscommunication with his crew and missed pit road. He would lead on the restart which came with two laps to go.
Blaney however had to settle for 11th.
“It was just a crappy situation,” Blaney said. “We fight our butts off to get the lead there from third and get it. I had a good shot of holding the 88 off.
“I thought we could have once we got in clean air I thought our car was pretty decent. The caution came out and we pitted, some guys didn’t, some guys took two and we just end up getting absolutely destroyed with people not knowing how many cars were to the outside of them.
“It’s easy to look back on it and say we should have stayed out. That’s a tough call for Todd Gordon in his position, but I’ve got to thank him for giving me a really good car. We were great on long runs. We were so good on long runs and that’s something to hold our heads up high about, it just stinks about the finish.”
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.
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