Ryan Blaney is a three-time NASCAR Cup Sequence winner at Talladega Superspeedway, even when it meant taking years off his life as every victory got here right down to a dramatic picture end. After profitable in 2019 and 2020 by .007 seconds, he added his third with a margin of simply .012.
Sunday’s YellaWood 500 was a mad scramble even uncharacteristic for Talladega with seventy lead adjustments, the seventh most in sequence historical past, between twenty-four drivers. Blaney and Kevin Harvick led a pair of strains within the ultimate two laps earlier than the previous discovered a run exiting flip two to take the lead.
After committing to the within, Blaney retook the lead with William Byron pushing earlier than Harvick and Riley Herbst closed the hole on the otuside. Coming to the end, Herbst and Chase Elliott had been hit and spun in entrance of the pack. As the sphere wrecked behind them, Blaney and Harvick surged forward with the previous narrowly on high.
“We did job of positioning ourselves up in the direction of the entrance there,” stated Blaney. “After we made a mistake at Stage #2 and misplaced monitor place, we did a extremely good job and had pit cease and was in a position to begin within the entrance two rows. The final restart, I assume, the #36 did a fantastic job. Riley did a extremely good job of pushing me type of the place I wanted it, particularly after we had been main the highest lane. He hasn’t run too many Cup races in any respect, and I feel the one different speedway he has run is possibly Daytona a month in the past. So he did a extremely good job of type of understanding the place to get on me and carry momentum. So recognize him for that. He did job.
“I feel the largest factor was getting clear to the underside down the again stretch in entrance of the #24 (Byron) to get alongside the #4 (Harvick). That made it to the place, okay, now it’s a drag race between he and I. The most important job too was ensuring the #24 didn’t get clear, so I type of needed to drag brake to ensure the #4 stayed exterior the #24 to ensure certainly one of us gained and made certain the #24 couldn’t leap exterior of me and made certain I had his assist.
“Only a neat day, enjoyable day. It’s all the time enjoyable to win this stuff, and you must recognize them as a result of they’re so onerous to do. We hung in there all day, and enjoyable to tug race Kevin there on the finish. I hate it needed to be us to beat him at his ultimate speedway race, nevertheless it was undoubtedly enjoyable to race with somebody like that, particularly coming right down to the top the place it will get fairly wild.”
Satirically, Blaney would have gained annyway even when Harvick edged him out. After the race, Harvick’s #4 failed post-race inspection as a result of the bolts retaining his windshield in place weren’t tightened. In accordance with crew chief Rodney Childers, “each bolt was nonetheless in” with thirty laps remaining earlier than two got here off ten laps later.
“There have been occasions I’ve obtained caught doing one thing I shouldn’t have,” wrote Childers in a since-deleted tweet. “In the present day obtained DQ’d for the automotive buffering within the draft all day and a few windshield bolts vibrating out. My guys had silicon on the threads and gobbed on the tip. Nonetheless got here out. Unsure what else we might do.”
The disqualification was the primary in any NASCAR nationwide sequence in 2023 and the primary within the Cup Sequence since Brad Keselowski was busted on the 2022 Xfinity 500. Whereas it spoils Harvick’s ultimate race at Talladega, his Stewart-Haas Racing workforce doesn’t intend to file an enchantment.
“On the completion of the race, not all of our windshield fasteners had been safe, as we had bolts that maintain the windshield in place again out over the course of the five hundred miles. We’re within the technique of diagnosing why this occurred and the way to forestall it transferring ahead,” reads a press release from SHR competitors director Greg Zipadelli. “We’re dissatisfied in NASCAR’s resolution to disqualify our racecar and the hard-earned end by our driver and workforce, however we is not going to enchantment. Our full focus is on the remaining races on this yr’s schedule.”
