Lebanon - Ryan Blaney broke his NASCAR Cup Series Cookie 400 pattern on June 1 and broke the game at the Nashville Superspeedway's best match of the year.
Blaney finished 37th in Nashville in 2021 and then ranked third in 2022. He lost control and hit the wall in 2023 without ending, then finished sixth after leading 26 laps in 2024.
This shouldn't be his year. It wasn't Blaney's year until June 1. He has 5 DNFs in his first 13 games.
Blaney won the Nashville NASCAR race on a 1.33-mile concrete oval, his first win of the year. His final victory was held in Martinsville on November 1 in 2024.
“It’s been a very tough year — there’s a lot of unfortunate and in a difficult time, and bad things happen to us,” Blaney said. “It’s like, ‘We have to finish these games or end a game and get things out. I don’t want to say it’s alleviating, but in the end nothing happens, we’re able to play our own games and bring speed, speed and do a really good job.”
This is the 14th professional victory for the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion.
It was after the game of Blaney’s 12th team Penske Ford, regained the lead after the last match and stopped Carson Hocevar, who matched his career best in second place. Denny Hamlin is third in his 700th career, with 2024 Nashville champion Joey Logano ranked fourth and William Byron ranked fifth.
"I'm not doing anything different than the year," Blaney said. "It's not going sideways for us. Everything is like a normal race. We execute as we should, and our cars are very fast.
"It feels like our team's game is hard to play. It's like something that doesn't happen or nothing is normal in a normal way. It's nice. Finally gone like that tonight. The fastest car won the game, nothing has to bother us to win the game."
Blaney is definitely quick. In the last 32 laps, he led 139 laps of 300 laps.
Hocevar ranked second, but never threatened Blaney. He didn't lead a lap.
Hamlin took the lead of 45 laps and then ranked after five laps. Hanlin returned to fifth with a score of 34, with 25 left.
"I just couldn't run with (Blaine) for a very long time," Hamlin said. "After 40 laps, I could maintain it with him, but after that he just pulled away and stretched towards us."
Byron was in the top five for most of the game, but never believed he had the speed to catch Blaney or Hamlin.
"I think our car potential is probably third, behind (Blaine) and (Hanlin)," Byron said. "We never really had to start the clean air again. I think if we could restart the clean air, maybe we could get them off, but it seems we have to do too much with the car to keep up with those guys."
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