Engine Failure Ends Blaney’s Day at Talladega

Engine failure on lap 85 brought a sudden end to the Camping World.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway for driver Ryan Blaney and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing Team.

Running strong from ninth on the starting grid, Blaney held his own in tightly packed two- and three wide racing and a pair of green-flag pit stops at the historic Alabama speedway. He ran in the top 10 for the majority of the time he was on the track, dropping back to 21st on lap 24 but rebounding to third place just before the engine failed to force a 43rd-place finish.

“We had a good car and we were just starting to make our way toward the front then we lost oil pressure and unfortunately it gave up on us,” Blaney said in the garage after retiring. “These guys worked really hard to give me a fast race car and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion was going to be really good today. It was a lot of fun out there for sure. Plate races are always a lot of fun. We’ll go to Texas and hopefully we’ll have a better run there.”

Asked if he could explain what happened, crew chief Jeremy Bullins said, “Water and oil don’t mix. There was no warning.”

Like Blaney, Bullins was happy with how the race was developing for the Wood Brothers’ iconic No. 21 before the engine stopped.

“Up until then we had a really good car and had two good pit stops,” Bullins said. “We had green-flag sequences that got us where we needed to be. We did a good job of managing traffic. We proved that we had a car that could do what it needed to do.”

Wood Brothers Racing PR