By Kirby Arnold, Special Contributor
AVONDALE, Ariz. – Ryan Blaney completed a weekend sweep for Team Penske on Sunday at Phoenix Raceway, driving his Ford to victory in the Straight Talk 500 NASCAR Cup Series race.
Blaney overcame two pit stop penalties to twice surge from the back of the field, then took the lead with nine laps remaining in the 312-lap race after a bold call by his crew chief to change only two tires on his final pit stop.
Cars from Team Penske dominated the weekend, with Josef Newgarden winning Saturday’s NTT IndyCar Series race after teammate David Malukas won the pole starting position, and Joey Logano capturing the pole for the NASCAR race.
It was the first time team owner Roger Penske’s cars won an IndyCar race and a NASCAR race at the same track on the same weekend.
As if that wasn’t enough pressure, Newgarden had told the team at a dinner Saturday night that the stock car side of the organization needed to finish the task. Blaney knew what was on his shoulders.
“Josef said our weekend is going to be absolutely ruined if you don’t do this,” Blaney said. “We had three of the four boxes checked. You don’t want to be the guy who doesn’t finish out the weekend for RP.”
As Sunday’s race unwound, it hardly looked like a Penske perfect performance.
Blaney, who won the November race at Phoenix, had to restart twice from the back of the field after penalties for loose wheels during pit stops. He impressively drove to the front each time – passing 49 cars on the day – and never lost his composure despite the pit errors.
“I didn’t say anything (to the crew),” Blaney said. “You just try to be motivational. I mess up all the time and those guys have my back every single week. People make mistakes. You say, ‘OK, there’s plenty of race left and we can do it. Let’s learn from what we did that went wrong and move on.’”
As the race played out near the finish, the winning move came on a call from the pits and strong execution by the crew.
Crew chief Jonathan Hassler called to change only two tires on the final stop. It allowed Blaney to restart ahead of Christopher Bell, who had dominated much of the race but lost track position when his Joe Gibbs Racing team changed all four tires.
“Honestly, the 20 (Bell) was the best car,” Blaney said, “but Jonathan made the call to take two (tires) and we held them off.
Blaney, who has 18 Cup Series victories and two straight at Phoenix, avoided the calamity that his other two Penske mates, Logano and Austin Cindric, couldn’t.
Logano was involved in two dogleg-induced crashes on the unique track, including hard contact in a six-car incident that ended his race with 21 laps remaining. Cindric took a hard hit into the outside wall with 96 laps remaining in another multi-car crash that began when Logano made contact with Ross Chastain.
At that point in the race, Bell had shown his strength at the front. He led a race-high 176 laps and survived multiple restarts to stay up front.
However, when the race slowed for the 11th of a record-tying 12 times with 28 laps remaining, it transformed from crash-fest to tire strategy.
Bell took four new tires on his pit stop but lost significant track position when his main competitors – Blaney, Ty Gibbs and Kyle Larson – left the pits quicker after two-tire stops.
Following another yellow flag, Blaney passed Gibbs for the lead with nine to go, but Bell was closing fast on his four new tires after restarting in eighth place. Bell moved into second place with five laps remaining and was within a half-second of Blaney but couldn’t get any closer. Larson finished third and Gibbs fourth.
“Ultimately, if we had more green flag laps we could have made a run at him,” Bell said. “This one stings, but on a positive side I’m really proud of our entire team. It’s something to build on. It was a day that we needed.”
Tyler Reddick, who became the first driver in Cup Series history to win the three races to start a season, ran near the front most of the day but was never a threat to make it a four-peat. He finished eighth, after having climbed to fifth with 30 laps remaining.
“We hovered around fifth all day, but when we took those two tires (on the last stop), we were a little tight at the end,” Reddick said. “We scored the fourth-most amount of points on the day, and that’s what we need to keep doing. If we’re not going to win, these are the kinds of days we need to have.”
Be the first to comment