JOLIET, Illinois – It was a long shot and a gutsy call, but Ryan Blaney and Wood Bros. Racing had nothing to lose.
When the caution waved with four laps remaining in Sunday afternoon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, leaders Chase Elliott and Martin Truex Jr. headed to pit road for fresh tires, while Blaney who pitted some 20 laps sooner elected to stay out and lead the field back to green in NASCAR overtime.
While Blaney’s No. 21 Ford was not match for a fast Truex on the restart, Blaney did lead his first laps of the season and found himself battling Chase Elliott for third coming to the checkered flag. Elliott beat his friend and rookie at the line, but Blaney earned his second fourth place finish in four races and a nice rebound after a disappointing finish last weekend at Richmond International Raceway.
“You know, it was a long day for us for sure,” said Blaney. “We passed a lot of cars. We didn’t start good. We started 22nd. Worked on our car all day and got it better and better each run. There was maybe only one run where I thought we went backwards. We fixed it right away and started going back forward again. That was promising.
“I think we were seventh before that last caution. Decided to stay out. “We initially decided if we could get to the front two rows, we were going to stay out. Then you kind of had a shot. But then everyone came. We decided to stay out anyway. That put us in the best position possible being able to restart the race.
“Knew it was going to be tough when only a couple cars stayed out with us. We needed about two or three more for it to be a realistic shot.”
Blaney was trying to become the first non-Chase driver since Denny Hamlin at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November 2013 to win a Chase race and while he didn’t pull off the feat, he did lead his first laps of 2016, eight of them.
Needing a good finish on Sunday, being out front for the first time all season was worthy of the risk.
And although not a part of the Chase party, Blaney and the Wood. Bros Racing team still have plenty to accomplish, plenty of noise to make and plenty more opportunities to earn their first win.
After earning his third top-five or eighth top-10 of the year, Blaney said there was risk in their decision to stay out and while most of the time it doesn’t work out, this time it did.
“We’re in a position where we can take risks like that,” he said. “We’re not in the Chase. We can stay out.
“But it paid off and we finished a little bit better than what we were going to. That’s a true testament of this team, not starting great but getting our car better throughout the day, taking risks like that that pay off. Sometimes they don’t pay off. Luckily this one did. A good run for us. Hopefully we can do something like that for the next 10 weeks.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
