NEWTON, Iowa – This time, there was no unpleasant surprise waiting for Ryan Blaney at the finish line of a NASCAR Cup Series race.
Blaney grabbed the lead after crew chief Jonathan Hassler’s two-tire call under the final caution of Sunday night’s Iowa Corn 350 and led the final 88 laps of the first Cup race at the 0.875-mile Iowa Speedway.
In front of a large contingent of family and friends, the reigning series champion crossed the finish line 0.716 seconds ahead of runner-up William Byron, who was racing on four new tires after pitting under caution due to Chris Buescher’s accident on lap 260.
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The win was Blaney’s first of the season and 11th of his career. Blaney has now won at Iowa Speedway in all three NASCAR national series, having triumphed in the Craftsman Truck Series in 2012 and the Xfinity Series in 2015.
All told, the race winner led four times for 201 of the 350 laps on a track that was resurfaced in the bottom two lanes of the corners.
“What a cool way to win here. This place means a lot to me and to my mother (Lisa, from Chariton, Iowa),” said Blaney, who was leading the World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway outside St. Louis on June 2 before running out of fuel on the whitewashed lap. flag.
“There were a lot of people here tonight cheering us on, so they invited us to do that. Overall, I really appreciate the whole thing (team No. 12). I mean, our car was really fast all night and we got a little bit better all night, and two tires was a good choice there.
“I didn’t know how well I would hold up. In the end I started to struggle a bit, but I had enough to hold on. I am very proud of the effort.”
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Byron wasn’t surprised Blaney won the race on two new tires, given the quality of the Team Penske driver’s No. 12 Ford.
“No, he had a really good car, so he was up front and had a lot of fight, and he and the 5 (pole winner Kyle Larson) were really good,” Byron said. “So we were just one step away from that, you know?
“I feel like I just had to make the center a little bit better and still maintain it for the long term. Proud of the effort. It was a really good evening and I feel like we can learn from it and build on it to become a little bit better.
In a race with eight cautions over 49 laps, Chase Elliott finished third, followed by Christopher Bell, who started from the back of the field in a spare car after blowing out a right front tire and crashing during Friday’s practice.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished fifth, while Joey Logano, Josh Berry, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suárez and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top 10.
The restart after the second stage break changed the entire dynamic of the race. Larson had just taken the green/checkered flag, taking his eighth stage win of the season.
But on lap 220, a circuit after the last stage, it went green for the first time. Contact from Suárez’s Chevrolet caused Larson’s Camaro to spin into the outside wall on the front lane, pinning Denny Hamlin’s Toyota to the barrier.
Larson’s crew eventually repaired the injured machine, but not until the 2021 champion had lost 31 laps in the garage. Larson finished 34th, 36 laps down, losing the series lead to Elliott, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate.
Larson, who led 80 laps on Sunday before the accident that left him in trouble, is eight points behind Elliott with nine races remaining in the regular season. Next up for the Cup Series is the USA Today 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this Sunday (2:30 p.m. ET on USA, NBC Sports App, PRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
