Two NASCAR insiders had some interesting things to say about Kyle Larson taking a shot at Ryan Blaney’s pit crew after the Bristol Cup Series race. On The Teardown podcast, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic reacted to Larson thanking the pit crew for their issues since it led to him leading the race for a long period of time.
“Maybe everybody should be sending a thank-you letter to the 12 team, and, ‘Hey guys, really appreciate all the problems you had on pit road. You made the race more compelling watching Blaney come back.’ Otherwise, Blaney would have just stomped the field, and it would have been a Kyle Larson last year,” Bainachi said.
Gluck focused on the issues Blaney’s pit crew has had all season. “It’s a real problem for the 12 team,” he said. “It was before.” Gluck then mentioned an interesting stat, saying that Blnaey had lost 86 spots on pit road this year, “which was 30 spots more than anybody else had lost.”
Kyle Larson says Ryan Blaney’s pit crew ‘kept putting him behind’
Gluck added, “I don’t know what you do. This is the kind of thing that gets in somebody’s head with the pit crew, and it becomes the butt of jokes.”
When the race was all said and done, it was Ty Gibbs who came out on top at Bristol. Gibbs beat out Blaney in overtime to win the first Cup Series race of his career. Larson finished behind Gibbs and Blaney but led 284 of the 505 laps and won the first two stages.
“Blaney had by far the best car. His pit crew just kept putting him behind all day, which really allowed us to lead a lot of laps, get those stage wins,” Larson said about Blaney’s pit crew after the race. “Yeah, so that was good. Happy about all of that. Just knew it was going to be difficult to hold him off.”
Despite the problems with his pit crew, Blaney is in second place in the NASCAR Chase standings/and Cup points behind Tyler Reddick. But if the team can’t get on the same page soon, it could lead to some bigger issues down the road.