Team Penske had a day of mixed emotions after the end of the South Point 400 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Although Joey Logano and the #22 team secured their spot in championship 4 with a win, Ryan Blaney and the #12 team ended the race on the tail end of the field in the 32nd position.

However, the problems for the defending Cup Series champion started with the practice run. A flat tire caused him into the wall, which forced the team to resort to a backup car and start the race on the rear end of the field. He did make gains during the stage 1 and stage 2 runs, but the streak of bad luck would come back to haunt Blaney.

Ryan Blaney got caught up in the big one

The biggest wreck of the race came during the stage 2 run. Tyler Reddick, who was running the high lane, was sidelined after his No. 45 Toyota rolled through the frontstretch grass in the 89th lap. However, at the same time, Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski were trading blows for the track position in the middle lane. The #6 of Keselowski shut the door close on Elliott’s No. 9, causing him to move higher, and next thing you know, all three race cars came crashing down on the track.

The #45 of Reddick took a nasty bump and completely flipped, eventually landing on the four wheels. While all of this was going on, Ryan Blaney was among the cars that tried to avoid the crash, but he wasn’t able to come out clean. The Penske driver tried his best not to make contact with Keselowski’s #6 Ford, but in doing so he rammed his car into the wall.

Initially, it looked like he did escape the crash, but the impact of the crash on the wall resulted in a broken toe link on the right rear of his car. And just like that, any hopes of salvaging a decent result ended with extensive repair and lost laps for Blaney. “I felt great; I got halfway there. I got to like 15th, and I was ready to re-stack. We’re in stage 2, we’re 15th, we’re halfway there, feel pretty good about it. At least just trying to contend.” Blaney said this to Bob Pockrass.

“Honestly, I couldn’t even see Brad. I couldn’t see him where he was in the grass, and Timmy said coming up, and I saw him last second. It was too late for me to get left, and I thought I could squeeze on the outside; I just got clipped and bent both of our toe links. No good after that, so yeah, long weekend, just one of those cr-ppy weekends. You feel like you can do nothing right; nothing’s going your way,” he added.

However, he was able to help his teammate Logano in trying to get clear past Daniel Suarez for the lead. But this gesture wasn’t appreciated by runner-up driver Christopher Bell.

C. Bell certainly didn’t like the Penske drivers teaming up in a playoff race.

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At this point of the season, every race car driver looks out for themselves, competing for those crucial points and wins. However, Blaney knew that he wasn’t going to be able to get anything good out of the race and decided to lend a helping hand to his teammate. It wasn’t a big deal as the Blaney pushed Logano in a good-old superspeedway-style fashion. This was enough for Logano to get past Suarez for the lead with 5 laps to go in the race.

“The 22 winning was probably bad for 12 because they are racing each other for points. So Penske, they win and get one car in; they did it right.” Bell said this after the race. However, Blaney didn’t put out any dirty moves on the racetrack, and the #20 was nowhere near him when he helped his teammate. Surprised by the JGR driver’s cryptic jab, Blaney had an equally fiery response.

“20 didn’t get to him until the last corner. I don’t know why he thinks I’m blocking for him. I’m on top, not taking anyone’s air away. He should’ve got to the 22 maybe quicker; he would’ve passed me pretty easily.” This was Blaney’s rebuttal. Things are certainly spicing up in the playoffs, and that generally is the good news for the race fans. We have two more races at Homestead and Martinsville, and perhaps we could witness a JGR-Penske rivalry pan out in these races.