By David Morgan, Associate Editor
LEBANON, Tenn. – Never give up, never surrender.
To say it’s been a trying year for Ryan Blaney and the No. 12 Team Penske team would be an understatement. Throughout the season, they have either finished inside the top-10 or limped away from a race weekend with a DNF.
In Sunday night’s running of the Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway, things finally all fell into place to bring home the victory – his first since Martinsville last November.
“I never gave up hope, that’s for sure,” said Blaney. “We’ve had great speed all year, just hasn’t been the best year for us as far as good fortune The 12 boys are awesome; they stick with it no matter how it goes, and it was great to finish one out tonight.”
After starting the day in 15th place, a strategy call from crew chief Jonathan Hassler to take two tires during the Stage 1 caution began to turn the tide for the No. 12 team as Blaney was able to take over the lead on the subsequent restart and hold steady against cars with fresher Goodyears behind him.
Though he would lose the lead through portions of Stage 2, he found his way back to the front by the time the green-checkered flag waved to capture the stage win.
Holding a lead of 3.65-seconds over Hamlin when the final green flag pit cycle began, Blaney made his final stop with 52 laps remaining, eventually cycling out ahead of Carson Hocevar, who had moved into the runner-up position and Hamlin, now running third.
By the time the pit cycle was complete, Blaney had a stable 2.5-second gap over his closest challengers, which he was able to maintain all the way to the finish to complete the sweep for Team Penske this season to get all of their cars to Victory Lane.
Hocevar would tie his career best finish with his second-place result – though he ruffled some feathers along the way – followed by Hamlin in third, who tied the previous best finish for a driver making his 700th Cup start.
Joey Logano finished the day in fourth, with William Byron rounding out the top-five finishers. The remainder of the top-10 went to Bubba Wallace, Erik Jones, Kyle Larson, Tyler Reddick, and Christopher Bell.
“I thought it was a good call,” Blaney said of the strategy play to get them in position to challenge for the win.
“We drove up to seventh there in the first stage, and I thought two tires were great. I thought my car was really good, and that really set us up for the rest of the race, so great job by him, as always, all the 12 boys, appreciate what they do pit crew was great… It’s nice that it’s finally happening, so I’m ready to go celebrate.”
Hassler said much of the same, noting the tire wear that everyone was experiencing tonight helped to steer them in the direction of being able to be a little more aggressive with the strategy.
“I think from my seat we saw probably a little bit less falloff than we’ve seen here at Nashville before, and in those instances we definitely just try to make sure the car is in the cleanest air that we can get it in,” Hassler explained.
“Sometimes when that’s your focus, you might get what you want by pitting early, sometimes you might get it by pitting late, so we just watched where we were going to come out on track and try and get the best track position we could.”
Circling the Wagons
It has been a trying few weeks for Team Penske as a whole, with the open wheel side of the operation in the NTT IndyCar Series finding itself in hot water during qualifications for the Indianapolis 500, which in turn saw some of the top executives at the company be dismissed.
Many speculated that the trouble over on the open wheel side may have filtered over to the NASCAR side, especially after a poor showing last weekend at Charlotte, but Blaney explained after Sunday’s win that one had nothing to do with the other and he was happy to have silenced the doubters with his and the team’s performance as a whole in Music City.
“I hate it for those folks over there last week at Indy. For those guys to have to go through that. The people that got let go were really prominent figures in the company. It definitely stunk,” Blaney said.
“But on our side, we just focused on kind of what we were doing, and RP told us all, things happen, and we’ve done things about them, and we’re going to move forward, and what’s the next step and how do we move on from this.
“Yeah, we had to hear all week that Penske cars are bad because the INDYCAR guys got caught and that’s why we were bad at Charlotte and then we come here tonight and kick everyone’s ass.
“Ebbs and flows of this sport, it’s crazy. But it’s nice to — I’m excited to talk to Roger because it’s been a tough couple weeks for him, and I’m really excited to talk to him on the phone tonight and kind of share some joy with him.”
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