Ryan Blaney needed a longer run at the end of Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway to have a shot at catching and challenging Christopher Bell for the victory.
Blaney finished second to Bell and was over 1.6 seconds behind at the finish. Although he had a fast enough car to get to second place, Blaney’s car needed long green-flag runs to really flex its muscle. Sunday’s race restarted for the final time with 25 laps to go.
“We were trying,” Blaney said. “We just needed laps. The long-run car was really good. I just couldn’t fire off for 10 laps or so. I think the track cooling off helped those guys. I think we were better in the hotter, slicker conditions when fire-off speed didn’t matter as much and it fell off quicker. That played into our benefit.
“It got a little cooler at the end and we never really found the front-end speed and they did. We ran out of laps a little bit. I am proud of the effort. It was a really good day, we just got beat a little bit there at the end.”
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Blaney won the second stage and led 53 laps, which was the second-most in Sunday’s event. Kyle Larson led the most laps, and it was an incident in the middle of the final stage between the two that changed the complexion of the race.
On lap 213, Blaney made his way to pit road with a healthy gap over Larson. But Larson tried to make it up coming to the commitment line and wound up overdoing it, tagged Blaney in the back bumper and then hitting the sand barrels.
The incident ended Larson’s day as the damage broke suspension parts in the right front. He apologized for hitting Blaney and said he wasn’t expecting the Team Penske driver to slow as quickly as he did to make pit road speed.
“I didn’t see anything,” Blaney said. “You guys watch it. All I know is I got hit in the bumper. I don’t think it hurt it at all. I didn’t even know what happened until I saw him in my mirror. I don’t look at that stuff.”
It was another moment in time in what’s been an eventful week for Blaney and his team. Blaney was initially disqualified after a sixth-place finish in Las Vegas before it was rescinded by NASCAR a day later after finding a problem with the template. However, he was still 17 points below the cutline going into Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Blaney had a fruitful day in the second race of the round and is now 10 points above the cutline. Martinsville Speedway will finalize the four championship contenders, which Blaney is looking to be a part of for the first time in his career.
“I hope we can perform,” he said. “We’ve had two good weeks in a row at Vegas and here. We have had solid weekends, so hopefully, we can do it again next week. It is nice to come in here a decent chunk down and then go to Martinsville in the positive. We just have to perform. We have to run well.”