BLANEY FINISHES IN TOP-10 AFTER ACCIDENT AT DAYTONA

Ryan Blaney wheeled the No. 12 Menards/Peak Ford Mustang to a seventh-place finish in Sunday's 67th running of the DAYTONA 500 and led 23 laps in the top-10 effort. Following a three-plus hour rain delay just 11 laps into the afternoon, Blaney worked his way through the pack over the course of the first stage before finding success in the top lane to come away with a third-place finish in the opening segment. Blaney powered his way to the front of the field during the opening run of Stage 2 as the field battled three-wide behind him before ultimately clearing himself off of turn four to narrowly pick up the stage win over teammate Austin Cindric. After winning the race off pit road, Blaney continued to control the race out front as the field took the green with 62 laps to go. With 15 laps to go and the intensity of the three-wide battles heightening, Blaney was collected in a multi-car incident on the backstretch that resulted in damage to the nose and right rear, but after multiple trips to pit road under caution for repairs, the No. 12 team was able to keep Blaney on the lead lap for the final run of the night. After restarting at the tail of the field, Blaney made his way through a pair of incidents in the closing laps to work back into the top-10 and salvage the night with a seventh-place result.