NASCAR Takeaways: Ryan Blaney Wraps Up Penske Weekend in NASCAR, IndyCar

LONG POND, Pa. — Ryan Blaney climbed out of his race car after his second victory of the 2024 season, and the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion may have unintentionally put other teams on notice.

“We’re in a better position at this point of the year than we were last year,” Blaney said after Sunday’s win at Pocono Raceway. “I feel like our speed is better. Our execution is great.”

The Team Penske driver showed he was a viable threat to repeat his feat with five races remaining in the regular season. Winning by 1.3 seconds at Pocono and leading 44 laps, Blaney benefited from a pit strategy that allowed him to take the lead at the right time to hold off the field. Late-race speeding penalties for Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson didn’t hurt.

Blaney said he wasn’t trying to make a statement to the rest of the peloton.

“They take it the way they want to, but I just try to focus on our deal,” Blaney said. “I try not to focus too much on other people’s stuff. … It’s a big testament to my team’s ability to figure out where we need to improve and identify the areas where we needed to improve since the beginning of the year with this car and the new Ford nose.”

It was a big weekend for Team Penske as not only did Blaney win the Stanley Cup race, but Penske drivers Scott McLaughlin and Will Power also won the IndyCar doubleheader weekend at Iowa. That gives the organization momentum heading into next week’s Stanley Cup race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a track owned by team owner Roger Penske and where Penske driver Josef Newgarden won the Indy 500 in May.

“We always want to have fun weekends,” Blaney said. “We had the pleasure of winning the Indianapolis 500 and the Indianapolis 600 (at Charlotte) last year. … Now we have a unique opportunity to go and win Indianapolis in IndyCar and NASCAR and it’s a special offer.”

“We’re going to take advantage of this opportunity, appreciate it, celebrate it, but this one (at Indy) is something we’ve already done. We don’t even talk about it in our camp. You know it’s a big challenge for RP (Penske) and we’re going to go full speed ahead to Indy.”

Key takeaways from Pocono, where seven-time Pocono winner Denny Hamlin finished second, Alex Bowman third and William Byron and Joey Logano rounded out the top five:

Another frustrating day at Busch

The frustrations continue for Kyle Busch, whose 32nd-place finish was his sixth finish of 27th or worse in his last eight races.

Busch almost didn’t start the race because his team experienced an oil leak while in the pits just before the race. The Richard Childress Racing team had to replace an oil line and was forced to do so just before the end of pre-race ceremonies.

He raced near the back all day, making perhaps minimal gains until a restart with a 40-lap lead ended his day when Corey LaJoie tried to look underneath him and as Busch tried to protect his position, LaJoie hit him in the back of his car.

“You’ve got mirrors and cameras and everything, so you’re trying to get in front of the race that’s coming and I was trying to get in front of that race and sometimes some people don’t get up (behind you, they go) kamikaze,” Busch said.

LaJoie said he hated that their contact took away good cars.

“I got to the left rear of (Busch’s) 8 and he blocked it one time and I just held the steering wheel straight and almost anticipated our bumpers lining up and giving him a little push – but when he blocked it the second time, he ended up right in my nose,” LaJoie said.

Hamlin can’t repeat

Denny Hamlin couldn’t repeat his feat at Pocono, a track where he won seven Cup races. He fell a few seconds behind Blaney before the end of the second stage, which Hamlin won. When Hamlin stopped after the end of the stage, he was behind Blaney (who had stayed on the track during the breakaway).

Hamlin ended an unusual streak of five consecutive finishes outside the top 10.

“We’ve been bad for about a month and a half in our finishes, not in our performances,” Hamlin said. “It’s good to have at least one good day out of here.”

Hamlin said he wasn’t surprised Blaney was strong, even though Team Penske’s strength this year was more on the shorter tracks than a 2.5-mile track like Pocono.

“I thought in practice, even though I was faster in the short runs, I thought he was actually pretty good,” Hamlin said. “If you put a car in front, it’s automatically going to be a lot faster than what you’ve seen all day.

“And it was probably the first time that the 12 (of Blaney) got a track position (after the second stage), so he was finally able to show some of the speed that he had.”

Bowman follows with third victory

Alex Bowman continued his winning streak last week in Chicago by finishing third. It was his best two finishes since finishing second in the Daytona 500.

He has moved from 13th to 10th in the Cup standings in recent weeks.

“There’s definitely still things we need to do to improve, things I need to do to improve our team, kind of across the board,” Bowman said. “There’s always room for improvement. At least we’re headed in the right direction.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including more than 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @Bobpockrass.