Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney revisited the location of his first NASCAR Cup Series win and secured a dominant victory in Sunday’s The Great American Getaway 400 at a sold-out Pocono Raceway. Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford outpaced Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota by 1.312 seconds, marking Blaney’s second win this season and the 12th of his career.
An excited Blaney exclaimed, “Hell yeah boys, let’s go!” to his team as he crossed the finish line.
With this victory, Blaney climbs to fifth in the championship standings and joins an elite group of five drivers with multiple wins this season, having also won at Iowa Speedway in June. Blaney expressed his delight, “Feel like we’ve gotten to a great pace and speed the last couple months. Honestly thought we let a couple races slip away from us I thought we should have won. It’s just so cool to win here again. Won here seven years ago for my first Cup win, so awesome to be back.”
Blaney, who had been in the top 10 for much of the race, took the lead on a restart with 44 laps remaining and maintained it despite two more restarts and a determined Hamlin challenging him. Last week’s race winner, Alex Bowman of Hendrick Motorsports, pressured Blaney until Hamlin passed him with seven laps remaining. Bowman finished third, with William Byron and Joey Logano completing the top five.
Hamlin, a seven-time Pocono race winner, noted, “Track position was just such a big thing and when that No. 12 [Blaney] jumped on that stage we won, that put them in front of us and certainly were going to be hard to pass. Just not enough laps of green there at the end, but hats off to them, great run. He kept up great pace at there at the front and hard for me to even get up there close enough to try to reel him in.”
Tyler Reddick, Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr. (stage one winner), Chase Elliott, and Bubba Wallace rounded out the top 10. Elliott’s and Wallace’s finishes were particularly significant for the championship standings.
Elliott now leads the championship standings by three points over his teammate Kyle Larson, with five races remaining before the Playoffs. Wallace’s top 10 finish keeps him in contention for championship eligibility, now 17th in the standings, 27 points behind Ross Chastain in 16th.
Chastain finished 36th after a collision on lap 53 forced his No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet out of the race. Kyle Busch finished 32nd after a multi-car accident with 39 laps remaining, leaving him 19th in the standings and 102 points behind 16th place.
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Sunday’s Brickyard 400. Michael McDowell won last year’s Indy race on the road course, while Kevin Harvick was the last driver to win on the 2.5-mile speedway in 2020.
