Rain washed away chances to race his way into Daytona, Kentucky events
LOUDON, N.H. – It didn’t rain at New Hampshire Motor Speedway Friday, and no one was more pleased with that weather development than driver Ryan Blaney and his Wood Brothers Racing team.
Blaney, running a limited schedule for the legendary organization this season, failed to make the 43-car field at Daytona International Speedway and Kentucky Speedway earlier this month when rain canceled qualifying at both events.
Friday at NHMS, the 21-year-old Blaney was 16th-fastest for Sunday’s 5-hour Energy 301 (1:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR).
“We definitely got a lot tighter in the second round for some reason; I’m not sure why,” said Blaney, whose No. 21 Ford was fastest in the opening round.
“In the second (round) on both laps we were just really too tight and couldn’t get the front end to do anything, so we’ll go back and try to figure out why we lacked a lot of grip the second run.
“We made a good amount of changes, too, to try to get the front end to turn between the first and second session, and it went worse. We’ll figure it out. We’re just happy to be racing here this weekend.”
Sunday’s start will be the seventh for Blaney this season. It will be the 1,429th for WBR, which has been competing in NASCAR since 1953.
Founder Glen Wood will celebrate his 90th birthday Saturday in the team’s hometown of Stuart, Virginia.
An alliance with Team Penske for 2015 has expanded the group’s schedule – this weekend’s appearance is the first visit to the 1.058-mile track for the organization since 2008 with NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Bill Elliott.
“The past couple of weekends have been pretty tough on us with Daytona and Kentucky getting rained out, knowing we had a fast car, and I think we’ve got a fast … Ford Fusion for this weekend,” Blaney said.
“It’s not the starting spot we wanted, but I think our race car will be pretty good and we’ll find that out tomorrow in practice.”
Blaney’s best finish this season came at Talladega where he finished fourth.