Blaney won the NASCAR All-Star Race for $ 1 million after caution, net

Fort Worth, Texas – Ryan Blaney talks about framing the window net from his Ford № 12, the one he somehow provided himself with enough to run two extra laps and win the NASCAR All-Star Race and win $ 1 million – after he and Penske thought that they have already won once.

“It’s amazingly unique,” ​​Blaney said. “I’ll never forget that.”

Such a strange night that NASCAR admitted later that the precautions for the last second of the race, which was to end under the green, probably should not have been acknowledged. Even Danny Hamlin, who finished second, agreed, but was disappointed that Blaney had not been warned for dropping his net when he first thought the race on Sunday night was over.

“Obviously Ryan Blaney thought he won the race,” said Scott Miller, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition. “It’s another byproduct of a kind of special All-Star rule, because in every other race we run other than this one, it would win the race if the precautionary flag came out.”

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Miller said it was clear to everyone that NASCAR “probably named this yellow flag prematurely.”

The Blacksmith flag was already flying, approaching the finish line if suddenly the warning lights come on due to the fact that Ricky Stanhouse Jr. removed the wall at the back of the field. The № 12 crew was already celebrating the victory in the pits, and Blaney lowered the window net at the back.

“In my place it was some kind of short-term panic mode, like like, damn, I’m going to return this net to the windows because it almost takes two people to do it outside the car, not to mention me and my skinny hands in the cabin The car is sitting and can’t get a lot of leverage on it, ”Blaney said.

Blaine spent almost the entire precautionary period trying to secure the net, while maintaining speed. Just on the stretch before the reboot, when he was clearly holding both hands behind the wheel and the net was raised, NASCAR decided he was ready. Blaney said he feels completely safe.

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“It’s hard because he deserved to win the race, but if you mess up and break the rule – not intentionally, but there are rules, and we have safety rules,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin tweeted after the race that NASCAR “put Blaine in the situation he found himself in. To compensate for this, he was allowed to break the rule. 2 mistakes are not right. Blaney W., NASCAR L. ”

Miller said there was no way to know if Blaney was completely closed network or not, but that NASCAR saw nothing that could force a penalty at the time.

Blaney said he wasn’t going to drink, and that he understood Hamlin’s frustration.

“But it’s just the result of running second compared to winning,” Blaney said. was second, so it just depends on the place, so I can’t blame him. “

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Hamlin even said he would have done the same thing Blaney had done if the situation had been the other way around.

Puskin’s teammate Austin Sindrik pushed him to restart after the finish in the green and white cells. Blaney was able to stay ahead and hold Hamlin, who finished in 0.266 seconds.

“Team № 12, they had the fastest car all night, and if I wasn’t going to win it, I was committed to helping him,” said Sindrik, who finished third, ahead of Joey Lagan, another Pensk driver. “I lined up for him in that last restart and gave him the best boost.”

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