HAMPTON, Ga. — You could fill a pretty sizable bus with guys who thought they had a shot at beating Ryan Blaney Sunday — sorry, make that Monday — in the Quaker State 400.
There was Chase Elliott. Christopher Bell. A late-charging Shane van Gisbergen, who was so sharp he might have thought he was road racing. Ty Gibbs. Bubba Wallace. And Carson Hocevar, who, with a win, would have completed a wacky, controversial weekend in an unlikely spotlight.
All pushed into or near first place at some point in the final stage, but the critical moments — and the final lap — were controlled by Blaney. With his bushy mustache arriving at the finish line perhaps before the rest of his body, the 32-year-old former Cup Series champion put on one of the finest performances of the season — and of his career — in winning for the second time this year.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos
In the sometimes frantic racing that colored the closing miles, with pretenders firing at him from every lane and every angle, even occasionally taking over the lead, Blaney never wilted. He had enough strength and presence of mind at the end to win by 0.068 seconds, leaving Wallace, Bell and Hocevar in a three-wide battle behind him. (After the race, Wallace was penalized for dropping below the double-yellow inside line while passing, sliding him to 29th place).
Elliott, Gibbs, Hocevar and others powered past Blaney’s Ford to take the lead at various junctures, but Blaney, in a car crew chief Jonathan Hassler called one of the best the team has built, bounced back to lead every time. He led 171 of the race’s 263 laps, almost matching an odd sort of record — laps led on a drafting-style track. Richard Petty led 184 laps in winning the 1964 Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway when it was the only “drafting-style” track.
“He would take his medicine and make moves to get back to the front,” Hassler said of the scattered occasions when Blaney lost the lead.
Blaney said his car was “incredibly fast leading. I could defend moves without having to throw low-percentage blocks. Some moves at you are unbeatable as the leader. I let them go and thought I could develop a run to get them back.”
Blaney called that sort of work “managing the lanes.”
The only downside of Blaney’s accomplishment might be the fact that most of his younger fans probably were in deep slumber when he crossed the finish line at 1:45 a.m. ET. The 400 was such a long race that it started on one day and ended on another. He was still answering media questions about the win at 3 a.m.
Rain, rarely a friend to the race car driver or the race promoter, was expected Sunday night at EchoPark Speedway, and that expectation was met. A few minutes after the race was stopped after 108 laps because of lightning popping from nearby storm clouds, the rain arrived in great swaths, soaking the racing surface, pit road and any fans who had been slow to seek shelter.
It rained hard enough and long enough to force a three-hour, nine-minute delay.
RELATED: Watch final laps | Blaney on battling Hocevar, others
Among the results — two different races on two different days. When green-flag racing resumed at 12:01 a.m. Monday, quite deep into the night, the super-fast track surface was a new animal, cooler and a somewhat different challenge, at least until the field put down enough laps to return it to something like normal.
Blaney beat the rain, the track changes, the tension that comes automatically with an overtime finish and even a late-race moment when his ride briefly threatened everything he had done. He bounced lightly off the wall with 30 laps to go, causing a vibration and accelerating heartbeats in the Team Penske pit.
It turned out that the only significant damage was to the hopes of the pretenders.
For Ford, burdened by a 15-race winless string, the racing both before and after midnight was a great salve to what has been a tough season. It also was a big boost for Blaney and his team, which has pushed through some pit-road issues and now is making a run at the No. 1 seed in The Chase.
On a rainy night in Georgia, he was Superman.