Blaney Wins All-Star Race, $1M 2 Laps After Thinking He Won
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Loading... - jamie harper
- 23 May 2022
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The checkered flag was already waving for Ryan Blaney when the caution lights came on just yards before he got to the line to win NASCAR's All-Star race and $1 million. He had to get his window net back in place and go two more laps.
NASCAR acknowledged afterward that it “probably prematurely called” that final yellow flag.
Blaney’s crew was already celebrating the victory in the pits and the driver had already lowered the window net of his No. 12 Ford after crossing the start-finish line. But the All-Star race has to finish under green.
“That rule was never kind of relayed to us. I already took my window net down and everything. My left arm is worn out from trying to get that damn thing back up,” Blaney said. “I got it rigged up enough to where it halfway stayed.”
After the caution period, when Blaney was fiddling with the net while having to maintain speed, he stayed in front through a green-white-checkered finish. Pushed by his Penske teammate Austin Cindric on the restart, Blaney was able to stay in front and hold off Denny Hamlin, who finished 0.266 seconds behind.
“I appreciate NASCAR for not making us come down pit road to fix it and letting me get it clipped back again to where we could stay out there,” Blaney said.
Hamlin said NASCAR was wrong on both fronts, first for even calling the caution for Ricky Stenhouse Jr. going into the wall on the backstretch in the back of the field.
“Never should have been a yellow in the first place. They put Blaney in the situation he was in. To make up for it they let him break a rule. 2 wrongs don’t make a right. Blaney W, NASCAR L,” Hamlin tweeted minutes after the race.
“Obviously I think everybody knows that we probably prematurely called that yellow flag,” Scott Miller, NASCAR’s senior VP for competition, told reporters. “The way that works in the tower ... we all watch and we saw the car and mentioned the car against the wall, riding the wall down back the back straightway. The race director looked up, and I’m not sure what he saw, but he immediately put it out. Wish we wouldn’t have done that.”
Blaney, who said he can understand Hamlin's frustration, said NASCAR deemed the net safe when he was on the backstretch before the final restart. Blaney said the net was latched and he had both hands on the wheel.
Miller said the window net was up and there was no way for NASCAR to know if Blaney got it 100% latched, but also couldn't be certain at that point if he didn't have it done.
Cindric finished third and Joey Logano, another Team Penske driver, was fourth. Daniel Suarez, who got into the main event like Stenhouse through a 16-car open qualifier earlier in the day, finished fifth.
Former NASCAR All-Star winners Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson all crashed out in the second stage.
It was the fourth All-Star race victory for Roger Penske’s team. The last had been Logano in 2016. Read More…
