Rain, Bad Pit Luck Contribute to 24th-Place Blaney Finish in Quicken Loans 400

Intermittent torrential downpours at Michigan International Speedway and bad luck along pit road led Ryan Blaney and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion to a disappointing 24th-place finish in the Quicken Loans 400.

“We started off the race pretty good and just lost grip throughout the race,” Blaney said. “It’s unfortunate we couldn’t finish because we wanted to get back up there and finish where we deserved, not 24th.”

The afore-mentioned rain forced NASCAR to call the race after only 276 miles. Blaney and company needed the full complement of laps to recover from a lap-118 green-flag pit stop that preceded a caution period that put the Wood Brothers’ famous No. 21 a lap down.

“It just didn’t play out in our favor,” Blaney said of the pit road misfortune.

About the rain, Blaney said, “It wasn’t disruptive, just irritating.”

The finish is disappointing considering Blaney qualified the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford fifth with strong laps of 199.534 mph, 200.714 mph and 201.056 mph on Friday.

Blaney ran with the leaders for the first 14 laps then the first of two consecutive rain-induced red flags parked the field for two hours. He slipped to 11th on the re-start and was in 12th at the 100-mile mark. He was 13th at the 200-mile marker before the ill-timed green-flag pit stop that had him in 27th and a lap down. The rookie driver had worked his way up to 24th with expectations for more before the final rains came.

Ford Performance PR