Ryan Blaney’s hopes of defending his championship took a serious hit at Talladega Superspeedway last weekend. Coming to the end of a frantic second stage run, Blaney was shoved hard by Alex Bowman on the tri-oval coming to the start-finish line. The contact sent the #12 Ford spiraling sideways, catching Ross Chastain and a couple of other race cars.

Blaney seemed to have recovered from his crash at Watkins Glen with two back-to-back top-10 finishes, but he ran out of luck at Talladega. However, this wasn’t the last crash of the race; the big one that erupted at the very end of the race took out the entire field. A total of 28 cars were caught in the crash, which included playoff drivers like Austin Cindric, Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, and Chase Briscoe.

Had all these drivers managed to dodge the crash, Blaney would’ve been in a sticky situation. The crash certainly helped him mitigate the loss of points, and he seems to be up for the task going into the Charlotte Roval weekend.

Ryan Blaney isn’t fazed by the DNF at Talladega

Last time around, when the Penske star rolled his race car in the fall race at Talladega, he kickstarted his championship charge. He lifted his first Cup Series title after winning the fall race in 2023, but unfortunately, he was not as fortunate this time. While a DNF in a crucial playoff race isn’t an optimal outcome for the #12 team, they tried their best to salvage the day.

Like most of the playoff drivers, Blaney was on the hunt for stage points. Why? Because he knew in the back of his mind that a big one could wipe off his day. He ran well in stage 1, finishing inside the top 10 and grabbing himself a point. Moreover, he did cross the start-finish line when crashed into Bowman at the end of stage 2. Which added another three points to his tally. And he did catch a lucky break after multiple playoff drivers were caught in the big pile-up late in the race.

The defending champion heads into the Roval weekend with a cushion of 25 points and is now looking for a solid run. “Even though our day ended early with the wreck in stage 2, we were still able to gather proper stage points there wrecking. And then a big wreck at the end of the race caught up a handful more guys that were in the playoffs; that kinda of leveled it for us in a way.” Blaney said this to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

He also refuted the notion of being in a rough spot, which could hinder his hopes of defending his championship. “I still finished behind those guys, but we did a great job at Kansas a week prior to kind of put it in a good spot on points with some of those having issues at the end. So not in a bad spot heading this weekend, looking forward to it. I have high hopes for this weekend. Hopefully, we can compete and be able to move on.”

Ryan Blaney was indeed lucky to escape the big one and not be in a deficit going forward. But his teammates Joey Logano and Austin Cindric are against the wall with their playoff run on the line.

Team Penske driver in trouble going into the Roval weekend

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Austin Cindric was leading the charge of the race at Talladega with 5 laps to go before the crash took him out of the picture. He looked good after winning the stage 2 run and looked to pull out a big surprise win. However, he lost speed and handling on his race car when switching lanes and was run through by the #6 Ford of Brad Keselowski.

Joey Logano was also part of the lead pack with the Ford drivers, but he just couldn’t escape the big one. Now this has put both the drivers in a precarious position in terms of points to advance to the Round of 8. Logano is at a deficit of 13 points and will need a clean and solid points day at Roval to keep his championship hopes alive. The good news for him is that in his last five starts at Roval, he has two top 5 and a top 10 result to his name.

But the odds are completely stacked against Austin Cindric. After back-to-back tail-end finishes at Kansas and Talladega, he finds himself below the cutline with a disadvantage of -29 points. His track record for the road course race at Charlotte isn’t something to rave about. In the two starts he’s made at the track, the best result he conjured up was a P21 back in 2022. So, nothing less than a picture-perfect race for Cindric will work out in his favor.

There is a strong possibility that out of the three Team Penske cars, only one of them will make it to the semi-final stage of the competition.