Contact with other cars on re-starts during the second segment of the Overton’s 400 kept Ryan Blaney and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing team from repeating their June win at Pocono Raceway and cause a 30th-place finish.
The weekend started well for Wood Brothers Racing with a fifth-place starting position. It was Blaney’s 14th top-10 start in 21 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races. Then he went on to finish fifth in Stage 1 collecting five additional regular-season points in the process.
Early in Stage 2, however, Blaney made contact with Jimmie Johnson during one re-start then Erik Jones on another re-start. The second incident caused enough damage to require two extra visits to pit road taking the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Fusion out of contention.
“Obviously that wasn’t the finish we thought we’d have today,” Blaney said. “Unfortunately we got some contact on re-starts and had to pit to fix damage and that put us behind. It’s too bad. We had a fast Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford this weekend, definitely a top-10 or a top-five car.”
Once the iconic Wood Brothers No. 21 was fixed, Blaney and company were in 34th place two laps behind the leader at lap 70 of 160. He continued to drive hard and improved four positions before the checkered flag flew over the Tricky Triangle.
“We’ll put this behind us and go to Watkins Glen and do what we did at Sonoma,” said Blaney referring to his top-10 finish at the California road course earlier this season.
Blaney is now eighth in the NASCAR Playoffs standings with his June Pocono win and eight playoff points. He is 12th in the regular season standings, 294 points behind leader Martin Truex, Jr.
The next stop on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series circuit is the I Love New York 355 at The Glen road race at Watkins Glen International on Sunday, Aug. 6, at 3 p.m. It will be broadcast on NBCSN.
Ford Performance PR
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