Blaney Triumphs at the Tricky Triangle
Defending champion Ryan Blaney led 44 laps and held off Denny Hamlin to win for the second time this season. Of Blaney’s 7 Cup career wins, today’s victory was his second at Pocono Raceway. The first time he took the checkers at this track marked his very first W in the series.
Earlier in the race, Noah Gragson brought out the caution on Lap 14 when he got loose in Turn 1 and spun up the track into the wall. Martin Truex Jr took the lead on the restart and went on to win the stage, followed by 7-time Pocono-winner Denny Hamlin.
Today’s win was largely attributed to a strategy call by crew chief Jonathan Hassler, who called Blaney to pit road toward the end of Stage 2. Foregoing stage points to service the car allowed Blaney to start Stage 3 on the front row alongside Chris Buescher, and from there he took control of the race.
Brad Keselowski took the lead early in Stage 2, but Ross Chastain brought out the caution on Lap 53 when a tire went down on his #1 Chevy and he slammed hard into the wall in Turn 3. The incident ended his day. Josh Berry led the restart but on Lap 67 lost the lead to Denny Hamlin, who was on fresher tires. Hamlin went on to win the stage, followed by Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski, William Byron and Erik Jones.
Chris Buescher led Stage 3 and was developing a substantial lead over Ryan Blaney until Todd Gilliland in the #38 suffered a mechanical failure and brought out the caution on Lap 116. The majority of the field came to pit road to set up for the last 44 laps of the race, and plenty of strategy was seen with a combination of 2 or 4 tires. However, a whopping four drivers received penalties for speeding off pit road. Those penalities went to Ty Gibbs and Daniel Suarez as well as Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, both of whom had been running in the top 5 before the caution.
Following the restart, on Lap 121, Corey LaJoie got into the #8 of Kyle Busch. Busch slide through the grass and back onto the track, colliding with Ryan Preece and triggering a multi-car wreck that involved Cindric, Allmendinger, Hocevar, Stenhouse, and Burton. The wreck ended the day for Preece, Stenhouse, Burton and Busch, who is having an uncharacteristically dismal season with a black cloud that seemingly follows him from track to track.
Only six laps later, John Hunter Nemechek and Zane Smith tangled and made contact with Michael McDowell. And four laps after that, on 131, Ty Gibbs brought out the caution again when the engine expired and a mixture of water and fuel spilled out.
With only 25 cars remaining in the field, the race restarted with Ryan Blaney and Alex Bowman on the front row.
Bowman appeared to be reeling in the #12 as he cut down Blaney’s lead from 4 to just 1.2 seconds but then lost it again and eventually was passed by Denny Hamlin. But there wasn’t enough time for Hamlin to gain on Blaney who by then had stretched the lead and smoothly cruised to the win.
Uncharacteristically, he celebrated the win with a burnout on the start/finish line. This is something that Blaney has deliberately avoided doing in the past and has explained he doesn’t believe in abusing the equipment, especially because, “You don’t see he winner of the Kentucky Derby get off his horse and start beating the shit out of it”.
Despite the penalty and restarting at the back of the field so late in the race, Chase Elliott rebounded to eighth and now leads the regular season points standings, with 4 points over Kyle Larson.
The #12 of Blaney passed inspection. NASCAR plans to take the #20 of Christopher Bell, the #22 of Joey Logano and the #48 of Alex Bowman back to the R&D center for inspection.
Photos by Jett White
