Track: Bristol Motor Speedway
Race: Food City Dirt Race
Date: March 29, 2021
No. 12 Advance My Track Challenge Ford Mustang – Ryan Blaney
Start: 3rd
Stage 1: 5th
Stage2: 24th
Finish: 8th
Status: Running
Laps Completed: 253/253
Laps Led: 0
Point Standings (behind first): 7th (-101)
Ryan Blaney started third and finish eighth in Monday’s Food City Dirt Race at the Bristol Motor Speedway. The driver of the No. 12 Advance My Track Challenge Ford Mustang ran inside the top-five for much of the first stage and recovered from a mid-race incident to score his fourth top-10 finish of 2021.
Blaney would battle Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin in the opening 100-lap segment. The Advance My Track Challenge Ford would run as high as second, but battled a tight condition on exit. Blaney would fall to seventh by the lap-50 competition caution. A strong restart by Blaney would get him to fourth by lap 70. Still battling that tight condition, Blaney would relinquish fourth to Daniel Suarez and hold off teammate Joey Logano for a fifth-place finish in Stage 1.
Blaney would begin Stage 2 from fifth and reported the Advance My Track Challenge Ford was the tightest it had been all day. He would fall from eighth on lap 140 to 12th on lap 150. Todd Gordon and the team would take a huge swing on adjustments going back to their baseline setup. Unfortunately, on lap 154, Blaney would be involved in a multi-car crash on the frontstretch due to a lack of visibility. The Advance My Track Challenge crew made swift repairs and managed to keep Blaney on the lead lap. He would finish Stage 2 in the 24th-position.
Fortune changed for Blaney in the final 50-lap run to the finish. The adjustments made by the Advance My Track Challenge crew brought the heavily damaged car to life and Blaney drove from 24th to eighth the final 50-plus laps to score an eighth-place finish. He remains seventh in the NASCAR Cup Series point standings.
Quote: “It was a long day for sure, starting up towards the front and just hanging around there. We ran fifth in the first stage but were struggling a little bit with our race car and trying to find the best way to work on it and fix it. It was tight in the middle. We couldn’t get the tightness out of it all day until the last run. We got good, but we faded a little bit there and then had a restart and I couldn’t see nothing. Everyone was in the dust and I think I chopped down on the 18 (Kyle Busch) and we wrecked and, luckily, we were able to fix it up nice and made some good changes there for that last run. We drove all the way from like 22nd or 23rd to eighth, so just proud of the effort. It’s a shame we didn’t find that change a little sooner than what we did, but, overall, a good comeback by the No. 12 group.”
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
