Ryan Blaney wins NASCAR All-Star Race -- but inadvertent mistake almost costs him $1 million
Editor's note: Full results and race notes are at the end of this file.
In its 38-year history, the NASCAR All-Star Race has been an event where we’ve seen experimentation with rules (and some of which have ultimately gone on to be implemented in the future in regular points-paying events).
We’ve also seen nearly 20 different formats in that nearly four-decade run.
But Sunday night at Texas Motor Speedway, we witnessed one of the strangest outcomes to not just any All-Star Race that’s ever been held, but ANY NASCAR race for that matter.
And in the middle of it all was Ryan Blaney.
Here’s the back story: Blaney was in the lead and was on the final lap of the race when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. crashed at the back of the field. Blaney was roughly less than 200 feet from taking the checkered flag when Stenhouse's incident occurred -- but by the time the caution lights went on, it appeared Blaney was already across the finish line.
But because the All-Star Race rules are different than points-paying race rules, the race had to finish under green-flag conditions. If the yellow had come out in a points-paying race on the final lap, Blaney would have automatically won under caution.
Not so Sunday. And that’s when the All-Star Race rules nuance almost cost Blaney the $1 million prize.
Thinking the race was over when the caution came out and he being so close to the finish line, Blaney automatically assumed that like a points race, the event was over under caution and he was the winner.
Nope.
And to add insult to injury – and again, doing it without really thinking and almost in automatic fashion – Blaney pulled down his window net.
That was against the rules and Blaney found himself with a predicament: normally, it’s a crew member who locks the window net into place on pit road. But with Blaney in the lead and the race going into overtime, he couldn’t return to pit road to get the net fixed.
After several moments of trying to do it himself on a couple of laps still under caution, and feeling almost futile that he couldn’t do it and being unable to do so would cost him the win, Blaney finally improvised and rigged the net back in place.
It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.
And more importantly, NASCAR was okay with the way Blaney “attached” the net, the race was able to resume and Blaney went on to win the race more or less for the second time in the evening.
“It was about to real bad for us,” Blaney told FS1 after the race. “Everyone thought the race was over, I already had my window net down. I do want to thank NASCAR for letting me kind of fix it and not make us come down pit road.
“That was really tough and then to have to do it all over again after trying to get that window net back up there.”
But Blaney also drew some satisfaction by having to win the race not just once, but twice – so to speak.
“This is cool,” Blaney said with a big smile. “I know it’s not a points win, but it’s going to be a lot of fun for us and it’s going to be pretty big.”
Blaney flew home with a $1 million check in his wallet for winning the All-Star Race. Blaney becomes the 26th different winner in the All-Star Race’s 38-year history. And it was also Team Penske’s fourth win in the all-star event, all by different drivers.
And an added bonus to Blaney’s triumph was the fact his two Team Penske teammates – Austin Cindric and Joey Logano – finished third and fourth in the race.
That was some consolation for team owner Roger Penske, whose IndyCar organization struggled during the weekend’s qualifying for next Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, with only one driver (Will Power) to start that race in the top 12 of the Greatest Spectacle In Racing.
Denny Hamlin rallied to finish second, followed by Cindric, Logano and Daniel Suarez in the top 5, followed by Alex Bowman, A.J. Allmendinger, Chris Buescher, Brad Keselowski and Christopher Bell.
Not only did Blaney dominate the race, so too did Ford power, with six of the top 10 drivers having the blue oval badge on their hoods.
Follow Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski
