Ryan Blaney rallied from an early pit road speeding penalty to charge his way to a third-place result in the 2026 Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday, October 11.
The 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion from High Point, North Carolina, took the green flag during Sunday’s event in fourth place based on a qualifying metric formula. After losing four spots through the event’s first 35-scheduled laps before a scheduled competition caution flew, Blaney pitted with the field and jumped a single spot on the leaderboard in seventh place upon exiting pit road. Blaney’s event, however, quickly went south when he sent to the tail end of the field and penalized for speeding on pit road. Despite restarting outside the top-30 mark on Lap 40, he carved his way up the leaderboard and managed to work his way up to 10th place before the first stage period concluded, thus awarding Blaney and his No. 12 Discount Tire/Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse team a single stage point.
“Yeah, dumb penalty on my part,” Blaney said. “It’s not even a tenth of a mile an hour. It was a hundredth over from what [the team] told me. The risk-reward in that situation wasn’t very smart. I didn’t think I was pushing it, but I just got too much in that one section and tried to be efficient and it really cost us.”
Restarting in 10th place for the event’s second stage period start on Lap 86, Blaney was up into seventh place at the Lap 100 mark. He proceeded to motor his way back into the top-five mark as he was scored in fifth place by Lap 110. After exiting pit road in third place amid a Lap 116 caution, he navigated his way into the runner-up spot during the following restart on Lap 122. Ultimately, Blaney retained the runner-up spot at the second stage period’s conclusion and accumulate nine additional stage points.
Blaney then cycled to the lead for the first time during the second stage’s break period when he exited pit road first and he proceeded to lead the field to the start of the final stage period with 95 laps remaining. By half a lap to commence the final stage period, Blaney was outdueled by Christopher Bell as the latter executed a three-wide move beneath Blaney and Kyle Larson to assume the lead. Chase Briscoe, Bell’s teammate, would navigate his way into the runner-up spot shortly after as Blaney settled in third place.
Blaney remained in third place on the track through a late-race caution that flew with 63 laps remaining, where he then dropped to seventh place on the leaderboard following a slow pit service amid a stumble from his pit crew. Restarting in seventh place for the event’s final restart with 57 laps remaining, he drove back into the top-five mark with 33 laps remaining. As the laps dwindled, Blaney overtook Larson for fourth place with 20 laps remaining before he reeled in and overtook Denny Hamlin for third place 11 laps later. Ultimately, Blaney trailed the lead by nearly four seconds when he took the checkered flag in third place.
“[The team] did a good job of coming back after [the speeding penalty], being really good on pit road, making our car better,” Blaney said. “Honestly, at the end of the first run before the [competition caution], I wasn’t very good. I pulled the chute and we got a lot better. Overall, it was a good day. I just don’t quite have the fire-off speed as some of those guys – [Briscoe] and [Bell], [Hamlin] and [Larson]. They just fire off fast and kind of get out. I make up half of it, but not quite enough.”
Overall, Blaney notched his 10th top-five result of the 2026 season by finishing in third place in the 2026 Bank of America 400 event at Charlotte. He also racked up his 21st top-10 result through 32-scheduled events, his fifth consecutive top-five result in recent weeks and his fourth top-five result at Charlotte in the Cup Series division.
Prior to Charlotte, Blaney was ranked in fifth place in the 2026 Chase standings and trailing the points lead by 80 points. After Charlotte, he retained his spot in the standings despite losing five points and having his deficit slightly increase to 85. With four Chase events remaining on the 2026 Cup Series schedule, Blaney remains within striking distance of contending for his second Cup Series title.
With Charlotte in the rearview mirror, Ryan Blaney’s 2026 Chase for the NASCAR Cup Series championship resumes next Sunday, October 18, at Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, Arizona, for the Freeway Insurance 500. The event’s broadcast time is slated to commence at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN Radio, SiriusXM and HBO MAX.
