NASCAR XFINITY Series Race Report - Darlington
September 3, 2016
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Track: Darlington Raceway
Race: VFW Sport Clips Help a Hero 200
Date: September 3, 2016
No. 22 Fitzgerald Glider Kits Ford Mustang – Ryan Blaney
Start: 4th
Finish: 7th
Status: Running
Laps Completed: 147/147
Laps Led: 5
Owner's Points Position (behind leader): 4th (-60 pts.)
Recap: Ryan Blaney and the No. 22 Fitzgerald Glider Kits Ford Mustang ran inside the top-10 most of the day despite a late race incident, causing him to finish seventh in Saturday's VFW Sport Clips Help a Hero 200 at Darlington Raceway. Blaney and the team started the 200 mile event from the fourth position after qualifying was canceled and the starting lineup was set by the NASCAR rule book. Once the race started, Blaney quickly communicated his Ford was loose after he made contact with the wall earning his Darlington stripe on lap 10. The race saw its first caution on lap 22, where crew chief Greg Erwin called Blaney down pit road for adjustments to tighten up the Ford. Once the race resumed, Blaney started to run the fastest laps on the track and quickly made his way to the fourth position. During a long green flag run, Blaney was coming to pit road when a lap car made contact with the rear of the 22 Ford causing damage. The caution came out on lap 103 where Blaney was scored as the race leader. Once pit road opened, Erwin called Blaney down pit road to fix the damaged Ford. With less than 30 laps remaining, Blaney would restart in the 11th position. Blaney was able to race his way up to the seventh position before the checkered flag flew.
Quote: "We started off okay, but not great. We made some changes on one run and we drove up to fourth and were coming to pit road and down the whole backstretch, someone, I don't even know who it was, rear-ended me pretty hard and destroyed our race car. After that we weren't very good. I don't know if I had a tire coming apart or something the last little bit or what but the last 10 laps was bad. I am not sure. We will have to check that out. It was an unfortunate day because I thought we could have run third or fourth. Oh well. Next time."