DARLINGTON, S.C.: A quiet but respectable top-15 finish in the Crown Jewel Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway kept Ryan Blaney and his Team Penske team in a solid footing heading to the second installment of the Round of 16 next weekend at Kansas Speedway.
After narrowly entering the Playoffs by three points over Martin Truex Jr. in a race full of wrecks last week at Daytona, Blaney would need to have a win or a very good finish at the historic Darlington Raceway to convince the naysayers that he earned a place in the post-season Playoffs.
Starting ninth Blaney’s No. 12 Menards | Moen Ford driver would have an ill handling car to start the 500-mile event.
With the competition caution waving at Lap 35, the High Point, N.C. native would tell the team that he was very tight, tighter than most through Turns 3 and 4.
The team would reassure him that they would take care of him on the pit stop and that the plan going forward would still be the same.
Back to green, Blaney would go three-wide with Daniel Suarez and Austin Cindric gaining several spots and then a multi-lap battle with Kyle Larson would eventually get the Team Penske driver back into the top-10.
Finishing Stage 1 battling with pole sitter Joey Logano for points and position, Blaney would finish the stage in ninth During the pit stop, the team would give Blaney 4 tires, fuel, and an air pressure adjustment to help with the handling of his car.
In Stage 2 Blaney would restart in ninth place and move his way up through the field to the sixth position by passing both Bubba Wallace and then Erik Jones before green flag pit stops.
Telling the team that he was a little tight on green flag runs, he said that he would get a little freer by the wall but definitely tighter in Turn 4.
Communication from the team would be that they would push the air pressure back and run 45 laps to the stage break.
It would be the longest run on that set of tires, but a late-stage caution brought out by Cody Ware would give Blaney the chance to get a new set of tires and fuel and come out of the pits in the third position.
Coming to the pits before the start of the third and final stage, crew chief Jonathan Hassler told Blaney that they are going to go back halfway on the change to get him to be a little freer.
Blaney would restart the stage in the fourth position.
By Lap 272, even though Blaney was still running in the fourth position he would tell the team that he was “very loose” so on Lap 275 the team would bring him to the pits only for the caution to come out for a fire that engulfed the Ford of Kevin Harvick.
After a selection of choice words for his luck once again under caution at Darlington Raceway, Blaney decides not to pit and take the wave around to ensure that he would remain on the lead lap.
Restarting 14th on the final restart of the race, Blaney would collect one spot over the final 20 laps of the race to finish 13th.
“I think it always happens this way,” offered a frustrated Blaney after the race. “I don’t know, it’s the jitters of the first playoff race and running at Darlington.
“It’s a tough spot and you see a lot of mistakes that are self-induced and some that are not self-induced, but there always seems to be problems. It’s a good thing we didn’t have too bad of a problem.”
Blaney believe had the caution not come out late in the race, he would have been able to capture a top-10 run to start his potential championship run.
“The caution hit us at the wrong time, but we were gonna be fine and then we had to re-pit for a wheel that was gonna be loose,” explained Blaney.
“You can’t do that when there are 20 laps to go in the race. It’s just unfortunate, but, like I said, we stayed in it all day and got some decent stage points and at least finished (the race).”
Blaney heads to Kansas Speedway sixth in the championship standings with a 20-point cushion over the cutoff position.
The round of 16 continues with the next Playoff race, the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway on September 11th at 3:00 p.m. ET.
Follow Grace Krenrich on Twitter @Grace3140.
