KANSAS CITY, Ks – While concern in the NASCAR community spread like wildfire after his father Dave Blaney was injured in a World of Outlaws event at Eldora Speedway Friday night, Ryan Blaney stay focused in Saturday night’s Go Bowling 400 at Kansas Speedway, earning his first top-five finish of the season.
The NASCAR Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender followed up a seventh-place qualifying effort Friday with a race run where he was only out of the top 10 for a few laps after a green-flag pit stop at about the half-way point of the race and ran as high as third.
A quiet but hard fought top-five finish for Blaney and the No. 21 Motorcraft / Quick Lane Tire & Auto Center Ford Fusion delivered Blaney his second straight top-10 finish and propelled him back inside the top-16 in the championship standings. After 11 races, Blaney has four top-10 finishes including his career-best on a non-restrictor plate track.
“We started off the race really, really good,” offered Blaney. “I thought that was when we were strongest when the sun was up, the track was a little bit hotter. We were really strong then.”
Evident with most of the cars on track, not only was important to be up front and within sight of clear air, crew chiefs had to earn their money as track conditions changed – especially once the 1.5-mile speedway sat in complete nightfall.
“As the night came, it cooled off a little bit, we lost a little bit of speed,” added Blaney. “I felt like everyone kind of gained grip and got better, and we lost a little bit. It took us a while to try to get that back.
“We got it closer towards the end there. But still a decent finish for us. We got some spots with that little accident. But we were up there all day. Just a good day for us, good night, something to build off of, for sure.”
Things definitely got interesting for Blaney with about 30 laps to go and before Ford teammate Joey Logano was involved in the final caution of the night, the two drivers swapped ninth and 10th positions for several laps.
“Yeah that was interesting,” Blaney said. “He’d be better than us in the beginning, I’d pass him and he’d pass us back. That was a lot of fun. When you can run with the best guys, you learn a lot. and that was a great learning experience. It’s a shame he got in a wreck.”
With Saturday night’s Go Bowling 400 the first of two Sprint Cup Series point events run under the lights during the month of May, Blaney said that while the tracks are completely different and the tire compounds are expected to be different – there’s still something that can be applied to the series’ longest race of the season, the Coca-Cola 600 on May 29 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
“I think for sure, we definitely can learn stuff,” the High Point, North Carolina native added. “Even though it’s a different track, different surface, you can definitely learn things of what these cars do when tracks cool off and it goes from day to night. There are things we can sit back and apply for the 600 in a few weeks.”
Blaney also took an opportunity to inform the media post-race on how his father, 53 was doing after flipping several times after hitting the Turn 1 wall during qualifying.
“He’s fine,” said Blaney. He called me this morning when he got out. He was still laying in the hotel room, about to come home. I think he got home actually in time for the race, so I think he was able to watch the race. He got his bell rung pretty good, but he’s all right.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
