Reigning and defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney will have to start at the rear of the field on Sunday as the third round of the playoffs start at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
That’s because Blaney crashed just two laps into practice due to a punctured left rear tire. The car snapped around and hit the wall on the driver side. Team Penske opted to pull down the back-up car instead of repairing the primary.
“I had no warning,” Blaney said immediately over the radio.
Blaney will start Sunday as the first driver on the outside of the elimination cutoff, four points behind William Byron. This is also one of his best tracks with a third place in March and top-10s in three of his last four starts.
Did he feel it bottom out or anything?
“Not really, no,” Blaney said. “I went through one and two the first lap and it’s rough through there like it normally is, so I didn’t really feel anything odd or out of the ordinary. I figured a couple laps the pressures come up and you’ll be fine, but I didn’t feel anything down the front the lap that it blew into one, so it kind of caught me by surprise. I didn’t feel anything super out of place to make me think it was going to be flat into one, so it’s just one of those things that stinks and catches you off guard. There was no indication and it was in the worst part of the corner.”
On one hand, the NextGen is a challenging car to make up lost track position in, but Vegas is a wide intermediate and one of the more friendly tracks to a situation Blaney now finds himself in.
“It’ll be a big challenge for multiple reasons, but I feel confident. Hopefully, we can make our way through there,” Blaney said. “We’ve got all race. We might not be able to get stage points in the first one, but hopefully by the second one maybe we’ll get some stage points and then hopefully the speed is good enough to where we can run up towards the front. Yeah, it sets us back a little bit, but this group is ready to go and they know the new task. It’s going to be a tall one tomorrow, but I’ve got faith we can make the most of it.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.