KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Good recoveries or missed opportunities?
Cup Series playoff contenders Ryan Blaney and Christopher Bell both were capable of snagging the checkered flag in Sunday’s Round of 12 opener at Kansas Speedway. However, mistakes from the No. 12 pit crew and Bell squandered the taste of victory and immunity for upcoming races at Talladega and the Charlotte Roval, where their fates could be determined more by those around them than themselves.
After an unplanned stop to remedy a loose wheel in the final stage, Blaney rallied to a fourth-place result with help from a timely caution, while Bell settled for seventh place after separate dust-ups with the outside wall.
RELATED: Kansas race results | At-track photos
During the early portion of the final stage, Blaney had suspicions of a loose wheel that was all but confirmed by crew chief Jonathan Hassler as he referred to the security of the left-rear wheel as “questionable.” A few laps later, the defending series champion brought the No. 12 Team Penske Ford down pit road to put four fresh tires on and fell a lap down in the process.
“You go down the straightaway and the car just wanders around pretty hard and so I knew something was kind of wrong there,” Blaney said in regard to feeling the loose wheel. “Then it started off not vibrating in the corner and then it started getting bad in the corner and it started getting worse as I lifted getting down into the corner so that I couldn’t do it no more.”
Blaney’s abrupt pit stop came before the window to make it the rest of the way on fuel so the No. 12 team needed a caution to get back on track with the rest of the field — and that’s exactly what they got.
With 30 laps to go, Kyle Busch spun off Turn 2 while in the lead. Blaney found himself inside the top 10 at the time of the caution as the rest of the field completed their final green-flag pit cycle. Virtually everyone came back down pit road during the yellow and Blaney found himself back on track and on the right side of the coin to string together a top-five run.
“It’s not often I catch a break,” Blaney said. “It’s usually bad breaks. It’s not often I catch a good break so it was nice to catch a good one.”
Leading a race-high 122 laps, Bell, who won the Busch Light Pole for the race in Saturday’s qualifying, appeared to be in line for his fourth win of 2024 and an automatic berth into the Round of 8.
But wall contact thwarted a Stage 1 win for the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver and he had to settle for six points in the opening frame.
In a frantic dash to the Stage 2 checkered, Bell once again hit the wall, this time more significant as he dropped from second to out of the top 10.
“I felt like I just got a little loose getting in the corner,” Bell said about the Stage 1 wall contact. “I don’t know where the 24 [William Byron] was. He was obviously trying to get by me there so I got loose getting in [the corner] the first time. Then the second time, just trying to make a run on Alex [Bowman] and drove it right in the wall.”
Blaney and Bell both leave Kansas 28 points above the elimination line heading to Talladega next Sunday (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) but Bell knows he can’t feel too safe despite the cushion.
“It goes away quick so I’m glad that we made some points on the cut line,” Bell said. “From what I saw, there were a couple guys that are way back on the cut line, which is good, but the points go away really, really fast if you don’t perform. So the pressure is always on.”