Ryan Blaney had one of the fastest cars in Sunday’s Auto Club 400, but at the end of the day, he had very little to show for it.
Blaney finished second to eventual race winner Alex Bowman in the first stage. He turned the tables on Bowman in Stage 2, winning the segment by a wide margin. But Blaney got shuffled back after a restart on Lap 128 and found himself in fifth place when Bowman passed Martin Truex Jr. for the lead on Lap 133.
By the time Blaney reached second place, Bowman had built an insurmountable lead, and Blaney wore out his right rear tire trying to chase the leader. Three laps short of the finish, Blaney had to bring his No. 12 Team Penske Ford to pit road with a right rear tire on the verge of disintegrating.
The unplanned stop dropped Blaney to 19th at the finish, one lap down. It was a disappointing result for a driver who had led 54 of the 200 laps, second only to Bowman’s 110.
“Yeah, we led a little bit and ran pretty good,” Blaney said. “We just corded a right rear at the end. We lost the lead there at the beginning of the third stage and kind of got swallowed up, and the 88 (Bowman) got away and got gone.
“We needed to be in front of him. It is just the way it goes sometimes.”
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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