Ryan Blaney picks up a narrow win at Talladega to advance in playoffs.
He was nearly out of contention, but is into third round of playoffs
Ryan Blaney emerged safely from the wreckage at Talladega Superspeedway that claimed other playoff contenders, winning by a tiny margin that was huge for his championship hopes.
Blaney beat Ryan Newman in a door-to-door race to the finish line to win Monday and advance to the third round of NASCAR’S playoffs.
Blaney’s first win of the season came as he was in danger of getting eliminated from title contention. The playoff field will be trimmed from 12 drivers to eight next weekend at Kansas. Blaney had little margin for error after he had mechanical issues at Dover last weekend and finished 35th.
“Our mindset really was we had to win one of these two races,” Blaney said. “We were so far back in points. I know Talladega’s a wild card. There was a lot of wrecks today and a lot of guys got tore up. But we didn’t really get any stage points and we were already pretty far behind the eight-ball.
“We knew we had to probably win one of these two weeks. It’s just a huge relief.”
Blaney joins Kyle Larson in the round of eight, with six spots still available.
The race began Sunday but was postponed by rain after the first stage. The delay gave Blaney time to recover from a Sunday spin as he tried to enter pit road, and ended with Ford and Team Penske as winners. Ford had won seven consecutive Talladega races until Chevrolet snapped that streak in April.
Blaney was the leader on a restart with two laps remaining and had a huge push from fellow Ford driver Aric Almirola to gain space on the field. Then Newman came charging along on the outside line with help from Denny Hamlin and he easily zipped past Blaney.
But the Ford train remained committed and Blaney got another push from Almirola to pull alongside Newman. The two raced door-to-door to the finish line, with Blaney winning by a 0.0070-second margin.
The elimination race of the third round of the playoffs is Sunday at Kansas Speedway. Chase Elliott is the defending race winner and Brad Keselowski won the spring race.