Ryan Blaney is still searching for his first victory in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series after another dominant performance ends with just a top-five finish in the Go Bowling 400 at Kansas Speedway.
The weekend for Blaney started with taking pole position on Friday, the first of his career and first for Wood Brothers Racing since Ricky Rudd at Talladega Superspeedway in April of 2004.
He led the first 10 laps before Martin Truex Jr. powered by his outside exiting Turn 2 on lap 11.
Blaney was near the front the entire race with a 2.1 average running position, the best of anyone. He never ran lower than fifth at any point in the race.
It should come as no surprise then that he finished third in the first stage and won the second stage.
He and Truex traded battled for the lead in the final stage, with Truex taking it with 87 laps to go and Blaney with 46 to go.
But the winning move belonged to Truex, who made it exiting Turn 2 with 24 to go and held of Blaney on subsequent restarts to win the race.
Blaney restarted second in the outside lane on the final restart with two laps to go. But while the outside was the lane of choice early in the race when the Sun was still out, it proved inferior under the cover of darkness.
He was unable to hold the advance of Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski and settled for a fourth-place finish.
“Yeah, it happens I guess. We weren’t very good on the long run,” he said on pit road after the race. “I felt that we had a great short run car tonight and I thought that was going to play right into our hands at the end. The 78 got us on that restart somehow. I don’t know. I was super loose there on the last restarts and the 78 got me spinning my tires a little bit. It kind of stinks. I think that it says a lot about this team to go out and lead some laps and go have a shot and win races.”
Blaney leaves Kansas 11th in points, 184 behind points leader Kyle Larson.
