JOLIET, Illinois – Ryan Blaney admitted he made a huge mistake during NASCAR XFINITY Series qualifying on Saturday when he spun and hit the wall, forcing the Team Penske Racing to a backup car for the postponed Owens Corning AttiCat 300.
On Sunday, he nearly made up for that mistake with a trip to Victory Lane.
Blaney finished second in his fifth XFINITY Series race of the year scoring his third top-five and recovering from a dismal 34th place finish at Dover (Del.) International Speedway earlier this month.
“I thought it was a good day for us, a decent day,” Blaney said. “I felt like I threw it away yesterday wrecking our primary. For our team to get a backup car out and work as hard as they did and have a car contending for the win and to be leading in the last little bit and then just not pull it off, that really speaks volumes to them about how well they prepared.”
After dropping to the rear for the switch of cars, Blaney looked possessed when the race started, moving into the top-25 by the completion of Lap 2.
His reign of terror through the XFINITY Series field continued as he rocked to the top-12 by Lap 10. Just fifteen laps later, the High Point, North Carolina-native found himself balanced inside the top-10 when the first caution waved on Lap 25 for the mandatory competition caution.
His deficit to the race lead was erased and Blaney made the most of the opportunity.
Steadily working his way towards the lead, the 21-year-old took command on Lap 71 for three laps, before Jones reasserted himself to the top spot on Lap 74.
With the race producing some epic passing at the front, Blaney would find himself on point for five more laps, before taking the lead during by staying out during the fifth caution of the day.
The No. 22 Hertz Ford Mustang look assured a victory when the third-generation driver bolted to a huge gap following the seventh and final caution on Lap 189, but with Jones on fresher tires from behind and a Blaney wrestling a tight-handling car, it proved to be too much for the Team Penske driver to overcome for his third career victory.
“We really didn’t take off very well on restarts,” added Blaney. “We got a lot better that last restart when we had tires and we were able to kinda get out there a little bit. We had a couple more, I think the cycles on my tires kinda hurt me a little bit, cause I really didn’t have the front turn I did initially taking off or with that many laps on tires. Usually after 15-20 laps we were really good and we could kinda start running Erik (Jones) back down. I just got tight in 1 and 2 and he got a good run and I couldn’t hang with ‘em.”
Blaney’s 15th top-five finish of his XFINITY Series career matches a season-best earlier in the season at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway. He’ll return to the XFINITY Series on July 25 at
Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
