Talladega win advances Blaney in playoffs
TALLADEGA, Ala. — 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 KyleLarson 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.
In other motor sports news:
• At Concord, N.C., Steve Torrence beat Doug Kalitta in the Top Fuel final at the 12th NTK NHRA Carolina Nationals and took over the points lead. Torrence, the defending champion, won the event for the second straight year with a final run of 3.772 seconds at 323.19 mph.
Robert Hight captured the Funny Car final over Jack Beckman, and Deric Kramer won in Pro Stock and Andrew Hines in Pro Stock Motorcycle.