Ryan Blaney likely needs two perfect weeks to end the Round of 8 if he wants to defend his NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Blaney is 47 points out of a transfer spot after a long Las Vegas weekend. It started with a crash in practice on his second lap on the track, because of a tire puncture. On Sunday, in a backup car, Blaney finished 32nd after being collected in an early crash that damaged his Team Penske Ford Mustang.
“I felt great,” Blaney said about the start of the day. “I got halfway there; I think I got to like 15th, and I was ready to restack. I was like, all right, we’ll start Stage 2 in 15th, halfway there, and felt pretty good about it. We were at least trying to contend, and I feel like we were going to get better in cleaner air, too.
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“So, yeah, I felt great about our pace. It was just a matter of getting there, and I just didn’t even get to rerack and go from there.”
Despite starting in the rear because of needing to go to the backup car, Blaney was making decent headway early in the afternoon. Blaney cracked the top 20 by lap 27 and led some laps during the first round of green flag pit stops by staying out longer on the cycle. He finished the first stage in 17th place.
The incident that changed Blaney’s afternoon occurred on lap 89. Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott, and Brad Keselowski were involved in a crash coming off Turn 4 that started from a three-wide collision. Keselowski clipped Blaney as his car slid back up the frontstretch, which knocked Blaney into the outside wall and damaged the right side of his car. He fell multiple laps down as the team repaired the car.
“Honestly, I couldn’t even see Brad in my A-post,” Blaney said. “The A-post is so freakin’ big; I couldn’t see where he was in the grass. Timmy [Fedewa] said, ‘coming up,’ and I saw him at the last second, and it was too late for me to get left. I thought I could squeeze on the outside and just got clipped and bent both the rear toe links. It was no good after that. So, yeah, a long weekend.
“It’s one of those crappy weekends, man. You feel like you can’t do anything right and nothing is going your way, but hopefully, we can go and contend the next couple of weeks. All we can do is try to win the race.”
The impact of two crashes in one weekend took its toll on Blaney. As he worked to salvage his afternoon, Blaney reported to his team that he was “struggling” and needing some Advil or something to help with a headache.
“My head was killing me,” Blaney said. “When we broke the right rear toe link, flopping all around in there trying to get back to pit road – you just get to freakin’ basketball back and forth, back and forth, on the headrest. I was fine until the end, and then my head started to kill me again. It helped me a little bit, but it was a long day.”
Asked if he was concerned about any lingering issues, Blaney said, “We’ll find out. I’ll be in Miami next week, though. I’ll tell you that.”