BRISTOL, Tenn. — A tale of two races for Ryan Blaney on Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The No. 12 Team Penske Ford was the quickest on track in the 505-lap barnburner around the Tennessee short track, but Blaney continued an intramural battle within the confines of his pit box and after a call to pit in the closing laps, Blaney crossed the finish line sliding into the runner-up slot next to first-time winner Ty Gibbs.
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“I thought I got a really good restart,” Blaney said about overtime. “It’s really hard to hit [the bottom] right. I got a decent first lap. I didn’t get a great [Turns] 1 and 2 the last lap, and it didn’t let me be even with Ty, and I got a really good [Turns] 3 and 4 the last lap. It just wasn’t quite enough, and I‘m not gonna throttle up and just destroy somebody.”
Blaney and Kyle Larson were the class of the field Sunday afternoon. The pair led a whopping 474 combined laps and swapped the lead between each other nine times.
The concrete track evolved with big swings throughout the day as Goodyear brought a new tire for the Cup cars to complement the 750-horsepower package.
Blaney said he liked the challenge that the tire and the track provided in the race, especially with Bristol turning to multi-groove action earlier than expected.
“I thought it laid a lot of rubber down, which was good,” Blaney said. “It was better than what we thought after practice, for sure. I thought it was gonna clump the bottom like crazy. The top came in. Like I thought it was a pretty good tire. It‘s weird. I didn’t think it fell off a ton, but it like clunked, put a lot of rubber down. I don’t know what to think about that, but it was fun working through the rubber progression through the day.”
What wasn‘t fun for Blaney was working through more pit-road woes as the No. 12 pit crew continues to statistically be one of the slowest in the Cup Series.
According to NASCAR Insights, the No. 12 crew was 32nd-fastest of the 37 teams on track Sunday, and in total, lost 11 spots on pit road Sunday along with the decision to pit in the final 20 laps.
“We gotta get it better,” Blaney said bluntly. “If we’re going to keep competing and get cars that can win the races, we’ve got to clean that up.”
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No. 12 crew chief Jonathan Hassler remained bullish on his crew fighting through early mistakes in the race.
“I think they did a great job,” Hassler told NASCAR.com. “We had a couple mistakes again, but they stuck with it. All of those guys are capable and we’ve stuck with them, and when everything was on the line the most, they followed through.
“The guys have a lot of potential. They have the ability. We’ve had some bumps in the road, some of which isn’t necessarily those guys or any one person; just kind of getting the whole group and the car and the team kind of in sync.”
While another strong Bristol run for Blaney still didn‘t bear his first victory at “The Last Great Colosseum,” Gibbs‘ win did conjure up memories of when Blaney scored his first Cup Series triumph.
In 2017, Blaney fended off Cup Series champs Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch at Pocono Raceway in the Wood Brothers No. 21 Ford for his big breakthrough, and Gibbs mirrored that Sunday, holding off titleholders Larson and Blaney at Bristol to get that elusive win in his 131st start.
Blaney had high praise for Gibbs after falling by just 0.055 seconds to the 23-year-old.
“You never forget your first one, that’s for sure,” Blaney said. “Even though I’m bummed we didn’t win the race, I’m happy that Ty was able to get his first win because I remember what that was like, and I remember the elation and the joy, especially when you’ve come close a handful of times, which he has.
“Ty‘s dealt with a lot of criticism, I feel like, from the outside. I feel like he’s handled it pretty well and it’s good to see that he’s been able to prove himself on the race track.”