‘That stings.’ Close to victory, Ryan Blaney has another disappointment at Darlington
Ryan Blaney hasn’t had much luck lately at Darlington Raceway, a that trend continued Sunday.
The Penske Racing driver was three laps away from his first victory at NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway, but after a bad late-race pit stop, Blaney finished fifth in the Goodyear 400.
Denny Hamlin won his second straight race, taking the lead off the final pit stop for the green-white checkered finish.
“I thought we were by far the best car in the second half of the race,” Blaney told reporters. “We just had to keep playing catchup so we got to clean things up on our end. Proud of the effort. It was by far the best car I ever had here. … That stings. I really wanted to win here.”
Blaney’s fifth-place finish was his best at Darlington in 17 attempts. His previous best finish was eighth in May 2021. He finished 36th and 37th in the two Darlington races last year.
Blaney and the rest of the field were playing second-fiddle for much of the race to William Byron, who led 263 laps but fell behind late with a different pit strategy. He ended up finishing second.
Blaney’s car was good on long runs and he was in fourth place after the second stage. But a bad pit stop forced back to 16th before he was able to make up ground by picking off cars ahead of him.
Blaney passed Christopher Bell and Byron to get to second place on lap 279. Then, he finally got to race leader Tyler Reddick and passed him after Reddick hit the wall on Turn 2. Seconds later, Bubba Wallace hit Kyle Larson to bring out the caution.
It looked like Larson checked up after seeing Reddick hit the wall. Wallace came up to Blaney on pit road and spoke to him but Blaney didn’t say what the 23XI driver told him.
Blaney had a brief conversation with Wallace’s co-owner and NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan on the matter after the race.
“Hey, if your boy didn’t spin out Larson it would be,” Blaney said as his voice trailed off.
Jordan responded with “Did he spin out Larson? I couldn’t tell.”
After the caution and during the final pit stop, Blaney dropped three spots and never was a factor in the finish.
“It just wasn’t meant to be,” Blaney said.
This story was originally published April 6, 2025 at 8:02 PM with the headline "‘That stings.’ Close to victory, Ryan Blaney has another disappointment at Darlington."
