STRONG START IN TALLADEGA, BUT ULTIMATELY ‘NOT THE FINISH WE WANTED’

Ryan Blaney and the No. 12 Menards/Dutch Boy Ford Mustang Dark Horse team produced a pair of top-10 stage finishes Sunday at Talladega but ultimately settled for a 23rd-place result following a green-white-checkered finish. After taking the green flag from the outside of row four, Blaney drifted to the back half of the field in the opening laps before making his way back towards the top-10 prior to the start of the pit cycle. Rising as high as second in the running order during the cycle, Blaney was called to pit road with the fifth set of cars for fuel only on lap 48, allowing him to blend into the rest of the field scored 15th with 10 laps remaining in Stage 1.  Blaney avoided a multi-car incident at the front of the field in turn three a lap later, setting up a two-lap shootout to the end of the opening segment where he took the run in the outside lane to a fourth-place finish in Stage 1. The Menards/Dutch Boy Ford took the ensuing restart from 24th and charged to the front of the field with teammate Joey Logano as the two formed a third line on the bottom to reach fifth on the leaderboard in just one lap. During a scheduled green flag stop on lap 109, the No. 88 spun at pit entry to bring out the caution as Blaney was making his way off pit road to set up another sprint to the end of the stage. As the field lined up to take the green with four laps to go in the segment, Blaney held his line on the bottom of a two-wide battle before moving up top in the tri-oval on the final lap to come away with an eighth-place finish in Stage 2. A caution on lap 165 saw crew chief Jonathan Hassler make the call for fuel only as the 12 team won the race off pit road, allowing Blaney to take the restart from the inside of row one with 17 laps remaining. As the field formed three-wide in the first few laps of the run, Blaney was unable to get the push to clear him to the front of the field before a caution with two laps to go set up a green-white-checkered finish. After pitting one last time for fuel prior to the overtime restart, Blaney restarted 22nd and ultimately took the checkered flag 23rd at the conclusion of the two-lap battle. Blaney and the No. 12 team, winners of the previous two Martinsville fall races to advance to the Championship 4, enter the final race of the Round of 8 seventh in the playoff standings, 47 points below the elimination line.