Ryan Blaney and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion made two passes in the final two overtime laps to finish 10th in the Good Sam 500 at Phoenix International Raceway for their second top-10 finish in as many weeks.
Blaney, who came into the race leading the Rookie of the Year standings, started 12th and never scored lower than 19th despite struggling with handling issues during the first half of the race.
“It was a good day and a good job by everybody on this Motorcraft Quick Lane team and a top-10 car is all I could ask for,” Blaney said after the race. “We fought really hard all day. We got a lot better throughout the day. We didn’t start out that great and we just got better as we went along.”
Persistent pit work got the Wood Brothers’ historic No. 21 up to 11th with six laps to go when a caution flag flew. Crew chief Jeremy Bullins changed the team’s last pit stop from a four-tire to a two-tire stop on the fly putting his driver in position to make a run when he came off pit road in 12th.
“The guys did a great job with two tires at the end and I thought about staying out but we wouldn’t have been on the first two rows so we had to come in to get two (tires) and I think it picked us up one spot.
The top-10 Phoenix finish puts Blaney in 12th place in the NASCAR driver’s points race.
The next stop for the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing Team is the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., the last leg of NASCAR’s West Coast swing.
Ford Performance PR
