You know what they say about the best made plans.
All of them.
Adam Stevens gave Christopher Bell the best car on Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway and a winning strategy. It didn’t matter.
Jonathan Hassler gave Ryan Blaney something awfully close in both regards and that didn’t matter either.
What did matter is that Austin Cindric and the Brian Wilson led team stuck around in the top-five literally all race and were posted to capitalize on a Bell engine failure and then Blaney running out of fuel on the final lap to win the Enjoy Illinois 300.
At first blush, Cindric seemed like an unlikely winner but the No. 2 Team Penske Ford started on the outside front row and raced alongside the usual suspects all day based on the average running order throughout the race.
- Christopher Bell 4.288
- Austin Cindric 5.613
- Ryan Blaney 6.100
- Chase Elliott 10.275
- Joey Logano 10.625
Fortuitous? Yes. Flukey? No.
But it’s certainly a bit of a statistical anomaly that a driver who’s best finishes prior to Sunday were a P4 at Atlanta and P15 at Dover is now going to race for a championship come September.
“We have to get better,” Cindric said. “It’s no secret, this is our first win as a company this season. So we still got to be able to go out there and put numbers on the board and continue to grow our program, grow our team to where we are ready for the opportunity. It’s not just an appearance. It’s a run in the Playoffs. That is what’s possible.
“The season is long. The summer is long. A lot can happen, a lot can change. Pretty important next couple months for us to get ready for that.”
Bell Tolled for Bell
The race ran through Bell, Stevens and their Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20. It wasn’t impossible to pass on the long flat speedway but it was certainly challenging and Bell could do it better than most.
It’s why Stevens was willing to give up track position late to let his drive have the tire advantage and it all worked out until he didn’t.
The engine started hemorrhaging power while making the decisive pass for the lead on Ryan Blaney.
There wasn’t much he could say afterwards, even if he still managed to finish seventh with the help of teammate Martin Truex Jr. pushing him down the straights.
“I didn’t know; it was just one instantaneous break,” Bell said of his engine.
All of his post-race answers were that short, not in a disrespectful way, but one that just reflected how flabbergasted he was.
Empty
Flabbergasted would be a good way to describe how Blaney felt after that too, an outcome that left him 24th in the final rundown.
First and foremost, he expressed congratulations to his teammates.
“They were really good and I don’t know that we could have passed them if we didn’t jump them on that last pit stop, so congratulations to them,” Blaney said.
“It was all I had to keep them behind me. They were great and Austin did a great job. Obviously bummed for us because the hits keep coming this month. I’m proud of the effort. Got to figure out what happened there.
“We didn’t do that on purpose obviously. Proud of the team.”
Results
- Austin Cindric
- Denny Hamlin
- Brad Keselowski
- Tyler Reddick
- Joey Logano
- Austin Dillon
- Christopher Bell
- Carson Hocevar #
- Justin Haley
- Kyle Larson
- Ty Gibbs
- Ross Chastain
- Chase Elliott
- Chris Buescher
- William Byron
- Todd Gilliland
- Chase Briscoe
- Daniel Hemric
- Zane Smith #
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Bubba Wallace
- Noah Gragson
- Daniel Suarez
- Ryan Blaney
- Michael McDowell
- Erik Jones
- John Hunter Nemechek
- Alex Bowman
- Ryan Preece
- Derek Kraus
- Harrison Burton
- Corey LaJoie
- Cody Ware
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Kyle Busch
- Josh Berry #
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.