Motorcraft/Quick Lane Team Battles Handling, Drives into Top 10 Before Late-Race Contact Cuts Tire

The Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion finished 36th in the Toyota Owners 400 due to a late-race crash but that isn’t what will be remembered by Ryan Blaney and the Wood Brothers Racing Team.

The main take away from Richmond International Raceway is that the team worked hard all day to rectify an ill-handling car that caused Blaney to slip from his third front-row start of the season to 18th place by the half-way point of Stage 1.

The Wood Brothers crew used every possible pit stop opportunity to work on the car, which finished Stage 2 in 16th place.

In the last 150 laps of the 400-lap race, Blaney was scored as high as 14th and as low as 20th before the handling returned and other competitors’ pit strategy helped him drive into the top 10 on lap 371 and into eighth on lap 372.

“We struggled most of the day but actually got it better at the end when we drove up to eighth,” Blaney said.

Then on lap 376 Kurt Busch bumped the Wood Brothers’ famous No. 21 and cut its left-rear tire, sending Blaney into the wall ending his day.

With the Richmond result, Blaney moves down two places to 12th in the driver standings, 169 points behind leader Kyle Larson.  

The next stop on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series circuit is the Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, Sunday May 7 at 2 p.m. ET.  

Ford Performance PR