An ill-timed caution period early and a brush with the wall late caused Ryan Blaney and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion to finish 17th in the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway Sunday afternoon.
Blaney had the Wood Brothers No. 21 in the top 10 for most of the first half of the race before pitting on green right before a caution period around lap 100 of 200, which put him a lap down when other cars were able to pit under yellow.
“Yeah, that stunk,” Blaney said after the race. “It didn’t help us out. We had to start all the way to the back. Those things happen. We had a really good car on longer runs. We got really good and we were driving up there really fast. Unfortunately we got put in that spot.”
Still, he battled and worked his way back into the top 10 before brushing the wall in turn two on lap 162 putting him as far back as 29th.
“The No. 17 just came across my nose super-fast and it completely took all the traction off my car and I slid all the way to the fence,” Blaney explained. “That’s never happened to me before.”
With repairs made to the right side of his Fusion, Blaney proceeded to work his way through the pack to the 17th and his 11th top-20 finish of the 2016 NASCAR season.
With that result, Blaney drops a position to 16th in the drivers’ points standings going into an off week before the NASCAR Sprint Cup caravan heads west for the first of two road course races on the 2016 schedule, the Toyota-Save Mart 350 June 26.
