Ryan Blaney got back on the winning track Monday and capped a great weekend for team owner Roger Penske.
The Team Penske driver broke a 59-race winless streak with a victory in the 64th annual Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.
After Kyle Larson spun on Lap 375 of the 400-lap event, Blaney’s No. 12 Ford started beside polesitter William Byron for the seventh time on the front row.
Blaney was able to pull away to earn the win for Penske, who won the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday with driver Josef Newgarden before the Coca-Cola 600 was postponed due to rain.
“It’s so cool to be a part of this (race), let alone win it,” Blaney said. “I was able to get the lead on the restart. Our car was so good that I could bide my time a little bit and drive off. … I knew we had the car to do it.”
Blaney became the seventh different winner in the past seven versions of NASCAR’s longest race and the 10th different winner through 14 races in the 2023 campaign.
He led a race-high 163 laps and became the fourth driver in the past six 600s to lead the most laps and win.
However, after the previous 24 Coca-Cola 600s, only once did the race winner go on to win the championship — Kyle Larson in 2021.
It was the eighth NASCAR Cup Series win for Blaney, 29, and his second career win at CMS. His most recent victory had come in August 2021 at Daytona.
Byron, Martin Truex Jr., Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick rounded out the top five in a race that featured 16 cautions.
Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman returned following a four-race absence caused by a fractured vertebra, and he finished 12th in his No. 48 Chevrolet.
Toyota drivers Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin showed they had contending cars and led in the first 100 laps, but Byron twice won the top spot off pit road after the first two caution periods and beat Bell in Stage 1 for his seventh segment win.
After a lengthy red-flag condition for rain at Lap 158, Stage 2 played out in full sun. Reddick’s No. 45 Toyota held the point, and Kyle Busch’s No. 8 Chevrolet spun out on Lap 175 for the sixth caution.
Hamlin, the defending 600 winner, had his day end after his No. 11 Toyota sustained hard impact before the start/finish line in a Lap 186 incident with the No. 9 Chevrolet of Chase Elliott, which also received major damage.
“I got right-rear hooked in the middle of the straightaway,” Hamlin said. “It’s a tantrum, and he shouldn’t be racing next week. Right-rear hooks are absolutely unacceptable.
“It’s the same thing Bubba Wallace did with Kyle Larson. Exact same. He shouldn’t be racing,” Hamlin added, citing NASCAR’s one-race suspension of Wallace after he wrecked Larson last October in Las Vegas.
Chris Buescher, in the No. 17 Ford, won Stage 2 while Blaney won the following one but couldn’t beat Byron off pit road again.
–Field Level Media
