Blaney Bashing
Quaker State 400: Ryan Blaney scored his second win of the 2026 campaign, picking up the win at nearly 2 a.m. Monday after the Quaker State 400 was delayed hours by weather. Blaney dominated the night, leading a race-high 171 of 263 laps. The most laps led in a drafting track since Richard Petty in the 1964 Daytona 500. No matter what the night threw at Blaney, he was always able to charge back to the lead. Yet, he still needed a little help on the last lap from Christopher Bell to surge past Carson Hocevar to snag the win.
EchoPark lived up to the hype once again, and there is no doubt this is the best 1.5-mile track and drafting track on the schedule right now. It is intense racing, multi-groove battles, and constant passing throughout the field. EchoPark demands that drivers are on it and fighting the car, the track, and each other from green flag to checkered flag. It gives us everything we want in a race, since it's reconfigured nearly every race. There are intense battles throughout the pack, and drivers can maneuver through the field. We have attrition throughout the race (usually) and fierce battles for the win. Sunday night/Monday morning, we had more of the same. The first two stages were (minus the weather delay) were pretty straightforward. Lots of action and battles, dominated and won by Blaney, but no cautions except for the stage end. However, in stage three, the action ratcheted up as drivers were making their moves to charge to the front. It did not go well for McDowell and Allmendinger as they tangled, and shortly after, Allmendinger had a failure and slammed the wall, ending his day. Several laps after the green flag waved again, Hamlin and Larson tangled, sending Larson spinning around and putting him at the back of the field. Hardcore racing continued until we had a massive pileup, essentially ending the day for seven drivers. This set up the overtime restart, and it looked like Carson Hocevar was on his way to his second win of the season. Yet Blaney and his BodyArmor Ford showed their power once more and charged to the lead. Helped by a late shove from the 20 car, Blaney retook the lead and charged under the checkered flag for his second win of the 2026 campaign.
Now we head to North Wilkesboro Speedway for the first Cup points race since 1996 - a historic return that I am excited to watch! The O'Reilly Auto Parts Series has the weekend off, so we have just the Craftsman Truck Series and the Cup Series on track this weekend. The Truck Series takes the green flag first this weekend on Saturday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. EST on FS1 with the FaithFest250. The Cup Series headlines this exciting weekend by going green Sunday night at 7 p.m. EST on TNT with the Window World 450.
North Wilkesboro Pick:
Trucks = Chase Elliott
NOAPS = OFF Cup = William Byron
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