NASCAR Legend Points Fingers at Roger Penske & Co., Revealing the True Culprit Behind Ryan Blaney’s Gateway Misery

Team Penske has received raps from NASCAR multiple times this year. It began with Joey Logano’s ingenious glove gimmick in Atlanta. The No. 22 driver wore webbed gloves to gain an aerodynamic advantage but gained a penalty sooner than he would have imagined. Then, the massive IndyCar scandal (Josef Newgarden’s illegal use of his car’s push-to-pass system) involving a Penske trio of drivers emerged. Now, the team is back in the center of the storm, and it has all to do with how the Enjoy Illinois 300 played out for Ryan Blaney.

This past Sunday, Roger Penske’s Cup Series team had a solid outing at the Gateway race. Well, almost. The closing laps spelled a climactic twist as one driver faltered and his teammate soared ahead. The reason might lie in the pit crew’s work, as two NASCAR insiders discussed.

The Gallons & Cans math that snatched Blaney’s victory 

The No. 12 Penske team executed an elaborate strategy at the Enjoy Illinois 300. After the final cycle of green-flag pit stops, Ryan Blaney was the first car on fresh tires. With 64 laps remaining, he was the first Penske driver to pit for fuel. But as the battle intensified between Blaney and Christopher Bell, the narrative changed. “I don’t think we were the fastest. Bell seemed like he shot out of a cannon. I don’t know where he came from, so battling him was tough,” Blaney admitted. But soon after the #12 driver won that on-track battle, Bell faltered and took himself out of contention. A similar fate awaited Blaney.

Just one lap shy of victory, Ryan Blaney mysteriously lost gas, handing his teammate Austin Cindric the win. What exactly happened to Blaney? Legacy Motor Club crew chief Todd Gordon and FOX racing analyst Larry McReynolds sat down to dissect the St. Louis last-lap scenario. Both experts narrowed down the issue to that last fuel stop. It took 10.1 seconds, and the fuel flow time took 7.2 seconds. The No. 12 team was supposed to unload two cans of fuel into Blaney’s car, but they ended up doing less than that.

Gordon explained, “We look at these gas cans, it’s just under two gallons a second that they can dump. If that’s 2 cans, that’s 14 gallons of fuel (given the 7.2s of fuel flow time). But that wasn’t. If we go back and watch this from a different angle, that was one can that they used here. “McReynolds agreed, pinning the blame on the Penske team, which showed no intention of providing adequate gas. “You see the other cans back here, they’re pretty much just on the stand back there. There’s no intent. ‘I’m gonna dump the one can, and that’s all I’m doing right there,’” McReynolds said, summing up what was possibly the pit crew’s mindset.

As there was time to unload at least part of the second fuel can, Gordon and McReynolds believe that Ryan Blaney lost the race during that pit stop. There’s little doubt that he would have won at the 1.25-mile speedway if not for this faulty pit execution. On the other hand, Austin Cindric’s crew showed the intent Blaney’s didn’t. With a pit stop time of 11.8 seconds and a fuel flow time of 9.6 seconds, they presumably used all 12 gallons of the first can (which would’ve taken around 6 seconds). In the next 3 seconds, they unloaded approximately another 6 gallons.

Comparing the two pit stops, McReynolds noted the thin margin between Blaney’s P24 finish and a potential win. “Again, they gave up about a second and three-quarters on [Cindric’s] pit stop. Of course, if Blaney does not run out of fuel, they’re gonna lose the race right here. But all Blaney needed was about a quarter of a gallon more fuel, just a little over one lap.”

When Ryan Blaney realized his fuel dilemma, he let his emotions burst over the radio. “I’m out of gas! That one is gonna f***ing sting.” Yet after the race, while he expressed gratitude towards his team, he also expressed frustration over his personal misfortune. “I appreciate the effort all weekend…should have won,” he said. But maybe that was because he was unsure why fuel ran out: “Just, I don’t know what I gotta do to get some luck on our side.” After the race, even his crew chief, Jonathan Hassler, commented on the situation.

He said, “We knew we were close, but that was a little closer than we expected. Like everyone else, we were trying to be aggressive and put ourselves in a position to win, and you have those things.” At the end of the day, the 2023 Cup Series champion gave it his all to clinch his first win of this season. But ultimately, it was out of his hands. Now that Gordon and McReynolds have dived deeper, Blaney may change his viewpoint. While nursing his own wounds, he was happy with the overall Team Penske result.

Blaney pats the team on the back despite personal misery

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In Sunday’s contest, Ryan Blaney led 20 of the last 23 laps and hoped for his first top-five finish since the April 7 race at Martinsville Speedway. He had three straight finishes outside the top 20, including consecutive DNFs at Darlington Raceway and Charlotte Motor Speedway. “Gosh, wrecked the last two points races and thought we had a great shot to win today, and it ended up bad,” he said.

Yet Blaney was happy with his teammates’ performances. All three Penske teams stood out in terms of strategy. They made only three trips down the pit road, while most other drivers came down the pit road four times. Although Blaney was the odd one out, Cindric won, and Logano secured his first top-five finish in eight races. Hence, Ryan Blaney was content: “It was a good day for our cars to run first, fifth and we were there in the top five. Proud of the effort, and I’m proud a Penske car won.” 

However, the NASCAR insider revelation about Team Penske’s slip-up might axe Blaney’s feelings. Let us wait and see how the team works on itself to improve at Sonoma Raceway.