Ryan Blaney Wins At Martinsville, Advances To The Championship Round (10-29-23)
Headline Photo Credit: USA Today
We head to the beautiful mountains of Virginia for what will be the last race of the playoffs. It will be the last race that determines who will be racing next week for the championship. Currently, two drivers out of eight are secure and six are still fighting to get into the champion race next week. Martin Truex Jr and teammate Ty Gibbs will bring us to the green flag. Martin Truex Jr will get a great start at the drop of the green flag. He started below the cut offline, so he knows that scoring stage points and or winning this race is his way to get into next week. They did make some changes to his crew this week to hopefully make his pit stops go smoother. Denny Hamlin does get around Ty Gibbs for second place and is trying to catch his teammate Martin Truex Jr. All the while the lead group is quickly catching the rear of the field at lap twenty. Martin Truex Jr will soon be dealing with the lap traffic, and we are only twenty laps into the race. In dealing with traffic Martin Truex Jr will lose the lead to Denny Hamlin. This appears to be causing Martin Truex Jr’s car to be getting tighter than when he was out front by himself. We have our first caution with Alex Bowman and Harrison Burton. It also caught up with Corey Lajoie as the leader was coming. Austin Dillion also appears to have been involved in the wreck. Ricky Stenhouse Jr was caught speeding on pit road and headed to the rear. Denny Hamlin almost did not make it through the wreck, but he did and would be the first off-pit road. With Denny Hamlin winning the race off pit road this does give him back the lead. He will go on to win stage one.
Denny Hamlin will bring us to the green flag for stage two with Ryan Blaney right next to him. We have major bumping and banging as drivers are two and three wide on the back stretch. At one point they were three wide and it looked as if there was going to be a decent-sized wreck on the backstretch. It took drivers multiple laps to finally get everyone calmed down and, in some order, where they were no longer bouncing off each other for position. The older tires for those drivers who decided to stay out at the end of stage one are starting to catch up to drivers. Ryan Blaney, being extremely patient, takes the lead from Denny Hamlin. The two drivers do have a history from last week but that is a clean pass. Ryan Blaney and Tyler Reddick make contact. Tyler Reddick did keep his cool but will be the first car a lap down as Ryan Newman will go around from contact with Christopher Bell. Ryan Blaney took responsibility for the contact. Denny Hamlin will win the battle off pit road. His teammate Martin Truex Jr was caught speeding. As well as Austin Dillion so both must go to the rear for the penalty. We go back to green flag racing and Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin start battling. They are bumping and banging off one another. The two of them are not holding anything back from one another after last week. The fans are on their feet and cheering on either for a possible crash or for their favorite driver to make the needed move to get up front. Ryan Blaney will finally get around Denny Hamlin and take a solid lead. Ryan Blaney will keep the lead through the remaining laps of stage two and win stage two.
We head back into stage three and Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney go right back to battling. Denny Hamlin was already on the radio saying he was going to do everything possible to win. It looked like we were going to have an accident between Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin. However, the accident ended up between Joey Logano and Ty Gibbs. That wreck then involved Daniel Suarez. We are going to have another restart which is going to lead to more beating and banging between Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin. During the caution, Denny’s team told him to use whatever tricks he could to win the race. So, this will make this race even more interesting as to how this race plays out. They know it is the only way for them to get in it seems is for them to beat Ryan Blaney. Ty Gibbs goes around for another spin when he goes off Carson Hocevar. This will set us up for another restart. Ryan Blaney gets a clean start and Bubba Wallace clears his team owner for second. Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin will race and pass Bubba Wallace for second. That is until Michael McDowell goes around during bumper cars. This leads to an even more interesting situation. The pace car breaks down and this caution mixes the field all up. Chase Elliott to the lead and Denny Hamlin is now in front of Ryan Blaney. Most believe they have made the final pit stops but they are on the edge of making it to the end. Having fuel and any late cautions will make it an interesting last portion of this race. Chase Elliott and others will still need to pit as they did not pit on the last caution. In traffic, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney continue to swap positions. Aric Almirola will take over the lead from Chase Elliott and lead for several laps while Ryan Blaney is still moving forward to try to catch him to pass him. Ryan Blaney’s car does bobble a little bit. It seemed almost as if he was testing to see where he was gas-wise. He catches and passes Aric for first place. Then it looks like drivers may be starting to run out of fuel as we see drivers diving onto pit road in the closing laps. Ryan Blaney will go on to win at Martinsville to head to the championship round at Phoenix next week.
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