NASCAR XFINITY Series Race Report - Charotte
May 24, 2015
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THE RACE
Hisense 300
Charlotte Motor Speedway
May 23, 2015
THE RESULTS
No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang
Driver: Ryan Blaney
Start: 12th
Finish: 10th
Owners’ Points Position: 1st (+63)
THE RACE RECAP
Ryan Blaney, driver of the No. 22 Discount Tire Ford, fought an ill-handling machine all afternoon long on his way to claiming the team’s 11th-consecutive top-10 finish of the 2015 NASCAR XFINITY Series season – a 10th-place finish in the Hisense 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Blaney started the 200-lap event from the 12th position, but fell back early while fighting an extremely tight car. Blaney radioed that his Ford Mustang was tight both in the center and on corner exit. Crew chief Greg Erwin called Blaney down pit road for four tires, fuel and adjustments to try and improve the handling of the No. 22 machine. During the next run, Blaney’s car once again got tight and the youngster fell to the 15th position. Erwin continued to make adjustments to address the Mustang’s handling issues. Blaney finally found some speed and was able to race his way up to the 11th position, where he logged laps over the later-portion of the race. Once Blaney settled in, he was able to crack the top-10, coming home with a hard-fought 10th-place finish. The result marks Blaney’s third top-10 of the season in just three starts. The solid performance also marks the No. 22 Team Penske Ford team’s 31st-consecutive top-10 finish dating back to Michigan of last year. The No. 22 Discount Tire Ford holds a 63-point lead in the XFINITY Series Owners’ point standings.
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
"My Discount Tire Mustang just wouldn’t run the top of the race track at all, so I was kind of committed to the bottom. We weren’t very good to begin with. We struggled with being really tight in the beginning, and ended up really, really free, so I’m not really sure what our issue is. But we’ll take a good, hard look at it and find out why we were that far off. I didn't think we were like that way in practice, so we’ll have to take a look at it."