Last year’s NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney was fuming after the second Bluegreen Vacations Duel at Daytona on Thursday night.
He was one of several cars involved in a lap-49 wreck, but the No. 12 Team Penske driver experienced the brunt of it as he was sent nose-first into the wall after William Byron made contact with the right rear of his Ford.
Kyle Busch triggered the crash, as he ran into the back of Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet and initiated the multi-car incident.
“I’m OK. By the replay it just looks like awful pushes in terrible spots. That’s usually how these wrecks happen,” Blaney explained in the moments following the incident. “Three times in a row here I’ve been right-reared by someone else’s awful push, so I’m getting pretty sick of it.”
The No. 12 Ford caught fire during the wreck, but Blaney climbed out on his own accord. He finished 18th in the Duel and will thus start on the outside of row 16 during Sunday’s race.
“You cannot push in the corner that hard in the tri-oval. I don’t know when guys are gonna get it,” Blaney said.
“I’m sick of paying the expense of it and getting right-reared from someone’s dumb push, so it’s just frustrating because we do everything right and then you have guys who are just careless and just shove guys until they don’t know when to let them go and it causes wrecks and I seem to be the byproduct of getting hooked in the right-rear which is never fun.”
Team Penske will be forced to move to a backup car. Blaney has yet to win the Daytona 500 in his 10-year Cup Series career. It was also a frustrating turn of events for Busch, who is likewise searching for his first victory at the “Great American Race.”
“I was just getting a push from the No. 6 (Brad Keselowski) there, and the No. 24 (Byron) I saw kind of got messed up, out of line and slowed down. I tried to lift and roll out of the gas smoothly. I was still gaining too fast, and then I got all the way out of the gas. Got bumped again from behind and just accordioned into the No. 24 and sent him spinning,” Busch explained.
He will start on the outside of row 17 on Sunday after finishing 19th in the Duel.
The No. 8 Richard Childress Racing driver claimed he had no choice in making content with Byron, and was simply just trying to take momentum wherever he could get it.
“You don’t want to hit a guy in the tri-oval. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. I’ve also rolled out of here in an ambulance before doing that, so I know it’s not the right thing to do, but sometimes you don’t have a choice and I turned the No. 24 sideways and caused a wreck,” Busch said.
He is also moving to a backup car for the 66th annual Daytona 500.