Ryan Blaney wants NASCAR to penalize driver for laying back on restarts after ‘ridiculous’ Kansas drama
Ryan Blaney was among the many drivers who had a terrible restart due to drivers laying back last Sunday.
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Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski (Via IMAGO)
Team Penske Racing driver Ryan Blaney has pointed out that NASCAR needs to step in and penalize drivers for laying back during restarts. This season’s Coca-Cola 600 winner was one of the drivers who suffered during last Sunday’s race at Kansas. The backstretch on the final restart was stretched far more than usual following the hold-up tactics from the drivers in the front row.
Blaney called the incident the worst re-start of his career and claimed it looked worse when he went back and rewatched it after the race. He called the incident super odd and now has asked for NASCAR to address the issue and solve it. Joey Logano’s teammate pointed out that the sanctioning body needs to follow other serious ideas.
“So, I feel like in other series, their cars, short tracks, they’ll throw a yellow if they think the leader went early, if the restart was jumbled, if someone is laying back. If you’re not gonna give penalties, do you just reset and do another restart? Do you give that guy a warning or you just penalize him right away, there are certain series that do it in different ways,” Blaney said, as reported by Speedwaydigest.com.
He added that the ridiculous incidents like in Kansas shouldn’t have happened and asserted that it will continue until NASCAR steps in. Blaney said, “I feel like they just have to really stay on the restarts and start penalizing people if they’re doing that stuff. NASCAR reminds us all the time, but we saw it be pretty ridiculous at Kansas, and nothing has been done about it, so until you start slapping wrists, everybody is gonna keep doing it.”
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Ryan Blaney is confident going into Bristol
The No:12 Ford Mustang driver was one of the drivers who tested new Goodyear tires earlier this year, and it has given him confidence. He also acknowledged that his team might have learned something from the right-front tire blow that ended his race last year.
“I hope so. I didn’t blow a tire at the tire test, so that’s good. We went through a lot of different sets, compounds…I feel like what we learned there last year with our issues, kind of team issues, I blew a right- front. The 21 did. I think the 2 blew a right-front too, so hopefully, we learned from those and going back and not having any mistakes,” Blaney said.
Blaney is going to the race next Saturday night with the hopes of securing his 9th career race win. His last two events were solid. He secured a P8 in Darlington and a P12 at Kansas, which puts him 25 points above the cut-line. One thing he needs to fix, though, is the fact that he hasn’t secured a single top-five finish since his Coco-Cola 600 win.
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Justin P Joy
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