For the third year in a row, Ryan Blaney started toward the back in the Cook Out Clash and stormed toward the front of the pack.
This year was unlike anything Blaney experienced the last two years, though. Through sleet, wet weather and at least three on-track incidents, the 2023 Cup Series champion rallied from the rear of the field back to the front multiple times to finish third in Wednesday night’s exhibition race at Bowman Gray Stadium.
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In each of the last two Clashes — 2024 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and last year at Bowman Gray — Blaney started last in the field by way of a points provisional and managed to score podium finishes; third in LA and second last year. This time, Blaney started 16th in the 23-car field for Wednesday’s 200-lapper, which was pushed to a midweek special at the hands of a historic snow storm in North Carolina over the weekend. On dry pavement, Blaney had no problem carving through the field to climb into the top five by the scheduled mid-race break.
But that’s about the time things went haywire. Sleet waded across the 0.25-mile Winston-Salem oval, drenching the asphalt during the halted action and necessitating Goodyear’s wet-weather tires to be mounted before a delayed-but-eventual return to action. Across the next 30 green-flag laps, Blaney was involved in two separate crashes and had fallen back to 17th place. By then, he lost hope that he could realistically get back to the top five.
“I wasn’t good in the wet at all,” Blaney said. “I was kind of nervous. I thought my car was unbelievable in the dry. Got to fourth there at the break. My car kept some tire in it a little bit better than the other guys that were really good in the wet.”
And yet as the carnage continued — all resulting in a Clash-record 17 caution periods — Blaney kept chipping his way up the pylon by avoiding the mayhem around him.
“Coming from mid-pack to the front to the back to the front again is a crazy night,” Blaney said.
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Despite his at-times-vocal frustration over the radio, the 32-year-old Blaney conceded he enjoyed the challenge of such unknown conditions. Never has NASCAR held racing while sleet actively fell from the sky, let alone at one of its most storied short tracks.
“It’s pretty neat working through it,” Blaney said. “Not knowing what to expect, not knowing exactly what lane is going to be dominant. Like, I was personally thinking while we were running around there under caution before we went back green in the wets, like that second lane looked – like, the asphalt looked smoother. I was like, well, maybe water is kind of sitting on top of it, but it’s out of the rubber. I don’t know which one will be better. The second lane kind of was the best lane, just from the rubber on the bottom.
“As a driver, you’re just guessing, right? You’re guessing to your best thoughts or what you think is going to be good, of how hard can I charge it, how fast can I roll? Race-car drivers, we always adapt. That stuff’s pretty neat to do when we’re thrown into that stuff. It’s pretty cool.”
Sure enough, while Ryan Preece scampered away to an emotional win in the closing laps by a 1.752-second margin, Blaney fought all the way forward to contest William Byron for the runner-up position. Byron won out and finished second while Blaney took the checkered third in the preseason exhibition.
“It’s just nice to get back in the car,” Blaney said. “Like, I haven’t been in a race car since Phoenix (in November). I didn’t have any tests or anything this winter. It was just nice to get back in the swing of things. You work with your guys through the week and in the winter, but nothing is better than working with them at the race track, kind of getting that camaraderie back, the communication side down, just getting back to what you’re used to.”
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Joining Byron at the media center desk to field questions post-race, Blaney said his eyes are set next on winning the Daytona 500 on Feb. 15 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). But to do so, he knows he’ll need to defeat Byron, winner of each of the last two editions of the “Great American Race.”
“Looking forward to going down there to Daytona. Try to see if we can make William not win one,” Blaney said with a smile. “Yeah, I look forward to it.”
“You’re pretty good there,” Byron remarked to Blaney.
He’s right. Blaney is the most recent Daytona winner, a two-time victor in the superspeedway’s summer race and oftentimes a serious contender for the Daytona 500 win. Blaney wasn’t taking any of Byron’s pity, though.
“You won the last two. Shut up,” he laughed.