Ryan Blaney prepared for Sunday\u2019s race at Indianapolis the same way he would any other race by going back and reviewing the race from the previous year, but he didn\u2019t watch every lap of 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cI watched it. I didn\u2019t watch the last restart,\u201d Blaney said Friday. \u201cEverything up to there, I watched it like I normally watch every race before we go back, but [at] the last restart, I turned it off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blaney trailed Brad Keselowski with three laps to go in regulation of last year’s event when the caution came out. On the ensuing restart, Keselowski ran out of fuel coming down the frontstretch and ducked to pit road. The field had already chosen which lanes they wanted to restart in, and Blaney took the outside because he didn\u2019t want to be caught behind Keselowski and his dwindling fuel.<\/p>\n
Kyle Larson, lined up in third position in the row behind Keselowski, inherited the front row (per the rule of the lane moving up when a driver falls out). In doing so, Larson gained the preferred lane for the restart and quickly took control once the race restarted. The final restart, for second overtime, was more of the same with Larson going to the bottom and Blaney doing his best from the outside.<\/p>\n
Larson won the race. Blaney finished third and was the most upset he\u2019s ever shown on pit road afterward in his interviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just crappy circumstances,\u201d Blaney reflected on last year\u2019s ending. \u201cThat\u2019s the only thing that stings. Yeah, the rule is the rule, and that\u2019s what it is. That part is separate. It just hurts a lot to go back and watch it because we were in a great spot to win, and it\u2019s the way it goes sometimes. Sometimes things don\u2019t go in your favor, or the timing of things doesn\u2019t work out, so that\u2019s really the only reason it hurts.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot mad at the rule or anything. It was just crappy circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is a hint of redemption in Blaney\u2019s attitude this year. He has a personal desire to win one of the biggest races on the NASCAR schedule, and do so for the team owner who loves the Speedway perhaps more than any other \u2013 Roger Penske having owned the famed facility since 2019.<\/p>\n
In seven starts, Blaney\u2019s average finish on the Indianapolis oval is 17.7 with three DNFs. A third-place finish last year and a seventh-place qualifying position in the same race are the best single-weekend performances Blaney has had at the speedway.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat one cut me deep,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was just a bummer situation, but I was looking forward to getting back here. Obviously, a huge weekend being here with [Roger] and everybody, and hopefully we can bring the same speed and try to contend. I would have liked to know what we had today (with practice rained out), and obviously, we won’t get the chance. We\u2019ll see if maybe they do something tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to come back. We have this place circled on our calendar every year because we know what it means to him and all of Team Penske. It\u2019ll be nice to hopefully make it up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Blaney prepared for Sunday\u2019s race at Indianapolis the same way he would any other race by going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[425,99],"class_list":["post-37524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}