Alternate Pit Strategy Late Falls Short For Blaney & Hassler

Ryan Blaney in action at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Scotte Sprinkle/Race Face Digital photo)

BRISTOL, Tenn. – While Kyle Larson dominated and won the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, Ryan Blaney and crew chief Jonathan Hassler made a Hail Mary pit call, and it almost worked.

In a race that saw only one caution for incident, and no cautions in the final stage, everyone had to make green flag pit stops. During the race, it became apparent that track position would matter more than anything.

When the yellow came out midway through stage two, for a spin by Shane van Gisbergen, Blaney pitted from eighth place to get four tires and fuel.

Blaney restarted in 14th and made his way back up to eighth at the end of the second stage.

During the final stage, most pitted earlier than expected, with the cycle starting just before 100 laps to go. Hassler, however, made the call to run Blaney as long as he could.

Blaney took the lead on lap 392 and didn’t pit until lap 440. At one point during the run, he had lapped the entire field while waiting to pit.

After running fourth before the pit cycle started, Blaney ended up finishing fifth.

“It was just kind of a learning thing all day,” Blaney said post-race. “The first run of the race nobody really knew what the tires were going to do and everyone kind of just rode around there a little bit … and we finally got going and we went so long (under green). Then it was like, ‘Alright, we can go a little bit harder.’ The track widened out, which was good. I honestly don’t know if I really anticipated that with the track getting wide and not having tire problems. But I’m glad that’s the way it was.

“I think it put on a pretty decent race. There were a lot of comers and goers, except for the lead, I guess, but it was a pretty fun day and a really good finish,” Blaney added. “We kind of took a chance of running really long there, seeing if we’d get a caution and then we finally bailed and had to make all the ground up and got back to fifth. Overall, it was a solid weekend.”

While he ended up losing a spot compared to where he was running before the caution, Blaney felt like it was the right call.

“Yeah, it was worth it,” the Hartford, Ohio, native said of his team’s gamble. “I thought it was a good move just in case someone blew a tire or something. For a while we had everybody lapped, and that was the long shot play to try and win the race. I was [fourth] before that cycle started, so it was nice that we got back up there for how long we ran.

“I didn’t have a ton of laps to make it back up, but overall, it was a good call by Jonathan. It was the chance to catch a break, and it didn’t really come, but it was a good weekend.”

Hassler echoed Blaney’s thoughts, saying it was really the only call he could make.

“I think that was our opportunity to put ourselves in position to win,” Hassler said after the race. “A couple different ways that works for us. We get a caution, we get everybody trapped a lap down, and that’s great for us. If we get a caution later and guys decide to come back and put tires on, then we’re in a good position to stay out.

“Given the speed in our car, we certainly weren't as good as the (No.) 5 (Larson). So that was kind of our option to play.”

The veteran crew chief was caught off guard by the lack of tire wear during the race. Practice saw a lot of tire degradation similar to last spring’s Bristol event.

In the race this weekend, however, tire fall off was almost nonexistent.

“I honestly expected it to be kind of similar to last spring,” Hassler said. “But it's certainly a totally different set of circumstances and weather and track prep and stuff that they put down. So [I] certainly was open to anything happening and just had to respond to what happened today.

“I think the weather probably was the biggest thing. The PJ1 yesterday just didn’t have enough temperature to really kind of activate.”

Blaney, the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion and 2024 runner-up, now sits sixth in points after his top five run. While he is winless through nine races, he has shown considerable speed so far this year and is heading to a track in Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway where he is a three-time winner.

The Cup Series is off next weekend for the Easter holiday, so the next race will be April 27 at Talladega for the Jack Link’s 500. Coverage starts at 3 p.m. on FOX, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.