DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Ryan Blaney accomplished a feat Saturday night at Daytona not seen in NASCAR in several years.
He went from outside the top 10 with two laps to go to win a race at a drafting track. No driver had done that at a drafting track in a decade.
Blaney’s charge from 13th to the victory in the final two laps brought back memories of Dale Earnhardt’s final Cup victory in 2000 when he went from 18th to first in the final five laps at Talladega. As a comparison, Blaney was 13th with five laps to go Saturday night at Daytona.
When he spoke to the media early Sunday morning, Blaney had yet to watch a replay of the last few laps but he looked forward to doing so.
“I bet it’s pretty cool,” Blaney said. “I have a unique view of it, but I can’t see what’s all around me, so I’m excited to see it from a bird’s-eye view.”
It was stunning.
Blaney goes from 13th to first to win Daytona
Ryan Blaney recaps a “wild” final two laps at Daytona, going from 13th to first to secure the win, and he describes his team’s strategy throughout the race for his second win of the season.
While the field often is bunched a drafting track, Blaney was only the third driver since 2015 to come from outside the top five in the last two laps to win at such a track.
William Byron went from ninth to win this year’s Daytona 500 when he avoided a last-lap wreck that took out the leaders. Chase Elliott was sixth with two laps to go on his his way to winning the Talladega playoff race in 2022 (Elliott passed Blaney for that victory).
Since the 2015 season, 35 of the 51 winners at Talladega, Daytona and Atlanta (since 2022’s reconfiguration) were in the top two with two laps to go.
Before the final restart with eight laps to go, Blaney had a message delivered to Cole Custer, who was in front of Blaney.
Blaney said to “tell Cole’s spotter if you want to jump to the third lane, I’m on board. You’ve got a wing man.”
Blaney said he felt that if both went to the top lane, others would follow and build momentum.
But Custer didn’t do it. Until two laps to go.
Things changed after Kyle Larson’s shove disrupted Ryan Preece’s car. Larson led a group of cars to the outside of Preece, who fell from the front of the field.
Larson’s move impacted Justin Haley, who was leading the race from the bottom lane.
“The pack lost momentum,” Haley said. “I got too far out. … I was a sitting duck.”
Haley ‘got too far out front’ to secure win
It was a season’s-best finish for Justin Haley, who found himself in position for the win at Daytona, but he “got too far out front” to hold off the pack and settles for a third-place finish.
Meanwhile, Custer and Blaney stayed on the top lane after clearing Preece. Suarez was behind Blaney and Jones behind Suarez. Those four drivers — Blaney, Suarez, Custer and Jones — would go on to all finish in the top five.
“It kind of worked out in a way of the top opened in the tri-oval and we got hooked up at the same time to where we had great speed through (Turns) 1 and 2 and then got hooked up at the perfect time down the backstretch,” Blaney said of he and Custer. “I think it was coming to the white. Got hooked up great down the backstretch, and then we were really in the ballgame.”
Custer led to begin the final lap with Blaney behind him on the top lane.
Haley moved ahead on the bottom lane in Turn 2.
As the field went down the backstretch, Haley went from the bottom lane to the top lane to stop Custer’s surge. Custer shot to the bottom to get by but Haley marked him and stayed in front.
“I’m going to relive (the last lap) for a long time,” Custer said.
Custer’s move and Haley’s block allowed Blaney to be the lead car on the top lane.
“When Cole and Justin went down the backstretch and they kind of faded at the bottom blocking, Daniel is three wide top, he has nowhere to go but push me,” Blaney said. “So I kind of picked the momentum lane.”
Blaney went on to nip Suarez by .031 seconds to claim the remarkable victory.
The regular-season finale came down to the last corner at Daytona International Speedway.
But Blaney was humble in his win.
“I can’t do it by myself,” he said of his last-race charge to the win. “It wasn’t me out there making those — I didn’t just turn left and pass everybody by myself. You have to wait — which I think the big thing is, what makes a good speedway racer to me, or at least that I try to keep in my head, is you have to be ready for the opportunity to go — like to make the move, the big move.
“I try to be patient for that opportunity. If it doesn’t come, it doesn’t come, and that’s what it is. Never came, whatever. But I try to just wait on it, and the opportunity was Cole and I having a big run down the front, the bottom lanes kind of checked for a second, and he took it, and we both took the momentum.
“You have no time to think about that stuff. It’s bang-bang play. You’d better just go with whatever your gut says. That was our opportunity to do it. If he wouldn’t have done that, I don’t know if we would have got there, honestly.
“It just kind of worked to where he and I were on the same page of we kind of just moved up together and we were able to carry all the momentum. It’s all situational and you go with your gut on a lot of things. And I make a lot of bad decisions too out there, but this one tonight just happened to work out.”
