Ryan Blaney had entered the Talladega race with expectations of finishing better than his previous year’s finishes — P20 and P39, in the spring and fall races, respectively. And this season, although he has shown flashes of speed, they haven’t turned out to be extremely effective when it comes to results. He had three DNFs entering the weekend, and Talladega made it four, owing to the Stage 1 incident that caught Blaney up with Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch.
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During the Jack Link’s 500 race at Talladega, coming off Turn 4 on lap 43 of Stage 1, as a group of drivers prepared to dive onto pit road, Busch, running behind Keselowski, appeared to make slight contact with the latter’s #6 Ford. By the time the #8 RCR car veered alongside, the contact had already unsettled the Keselowski, causing it to slide up into Busch and triggering a chain reaction that turned both cars.
Blaney, in an attempt to steer clear of the chaos, took to the lower track. However, Keselowski’s Ford clipped Blaney’s right side, sending the #12 car into a spin across the tri-oval and eventually to a halt in the infield grass. Meanwhile, Busch spun back up the track and collected Alex Bowman, though Bowman escaped with relatively minor damage compared to the others caught up in the melee.
Blaney’s day unraveled as his car was hauled off to the garage with a broken tow link and brake issues. Though he initially stayed strapped in, hoping his crew could patch things up and get him back on track, he had to climb out and call it a day, settling for a P39 finish.
A similar fate befell Keselowski, whose car sustained too much damage to continue, forcing him to bow out with a P38 result. Busch managed to drive his car back to the pit road, where his crew quickly made repairs and sent him back into the race.
During the FOX broadcast, Blaney didn’t mince words about his frustration, admitting, “Another DNF is no fun. Oh man, we’ve just been riddled with those this year. Hopefully, we can get it sorted out.”
Adding salt to the wound, when Dale Earnhardt Jr., who has long been one of Blaney’s biggest supporters, asked on his X handle for an update mid-flight, posting, “I’m on a plane and I cannot see the race. Care to reply with a description of the event so far?” Blaney’s response was tellingly brief: “I didn’t have fun,” summing up the dismal afternoon in four words.
Despite the rough patches, Ryan Blaney still holds four top-10s and three top-fives this season, showing there is still plenty of fight left in the No. 12 team.
