No. 12 Menards/Richmond Ford Mustang – Ryan Blaney
Start: 1st – Third pole position of 2022
Race Finish: 7th
Stage 1 Finish: 1st
Stage 2 Finish: 5th
Laps Led: 128
Point Standings: 1st (+0)

Race Rundown: Ryan Blaney started from the pole for the third time in four weeks, won the opening stage after leading the race’s first 70 laps and finished seventh in the No. 12 Menards Richmond Ford Mustang on Sunday at Richmond Raceway. Blaney led a race-high 128 laps, a career-high at the three-quarter-mile Virginia short track, en route to his 100th career top-10 finish.  It allowed Blaney to continue his streak of leading at least one lap in each NASCAR Cup Series event this season.  With the top-10 finish, Blaney took over the top spot in the series point standings as the series heads to the half-mile Martinsville Speedway Saturday night.

Blaney’s Thoughts:  “It’s tough.  There were a handful of cars that could kind of run up and run in traffic pretty good and we just weren’t really good enough to run in traffic.  Once we lost track position I struggled a little bit, but it’s nice to win a stage.  It’s cool to get the pole and good stage points.  We finished seventh, my best finish here.  Overall, a fun day.  It was kind of frustrating because we were running so good early.  I wanted to run better, but I can’t complain about it too much.  Overall, not a bad day.  We just have to find a little bit more speed, but it was nice that we kind of put together some decent notes and have an OK run at Richmond.”