During Stage 2 of Sunday evening’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Ryan Blaney slammed the wall in Turns 3 and 4 shortly after pitting during green-flag stops.
The defending series and Coke 600 champ suffered a blown tire, ultimately losing control of his No. 12 Team Penske Ford and careening into the outside SAFER barrier.
RELATED: Leaderboard | At-track photos
“I just came off pit road with tires on, and I don’t know if I ran over something, but one of them blew into [Turn] 3,” Blaney said.
Blaney had spent the first half of the race inside the top 10 after starting 16th for the 600-miler. He scored four points after a seventh-place result in Stage 1.
It will be the second consecutive early exit for Blaney after crashing at Darlington Raceway earlier in May, and he is slated to finish 39th in the 40-car field.
“It stinks,” Blaney said. “It’s two unfortunate weekends in a row where I thought we at least had a shot to get better and run close to top 10, maybe top five. We’ll get through it. We just got to hopefully put together a good race together next week.”