Tag Archives: Dave Blaney

2017 has been the breakout season for Ryan Blaney, getting the Wood Brothers back on track. He has proved that the sophomore slump does not exist, at least for him. Entering his second full-time seasons in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, Blaney has yet to cross the finish-line first at …

NASCAR.com’s David Caraviello is reporting that Humphrey Racing, which fields the No. 77 Fords for Dave Blaney in the Sprint Cup Series, will take the next few weeks off from the Sprint Cup Series tour. The team is not shutting down, though. Instead, they are retooling in order to show …

After the chaos that is Talladega, a pair of shoutouts go out this week. One goes to Dave Blaney, who worked all day with Brad Keselowski, hanging back for much of the race only to close at the end and finish third. The finish was a career best for Blaney, who runs for a small-time team in Tommy Baldwin Racing. Speaking of the smaller teams, two others made some real noise at Talladega as Casey Mears and Landon Cassill raced at the front of the field all day until the late-race mess destroyed their hope for a great finish. These are three drivers fighting for the sponsorship just to race, and they showed this weekend that they can get it done when the playing field is truly level.

There were a lot of lead changes in Sunday, and a few surprise leaders as well. One of those surprises came in the form of Dave Blaney, who led 21 laps before all but wrecking in turn 3 after a mis-timed bump from Kurt Busch as the race drew to a close. For Tommy Baldwin’s small operation, it was shaping up to be a huge day. That it was ended through no fault of Blaney’s should cast any pall over it. At a track that is the great equalizer in terms of equipment, it was interesting to see exactly which cream rose to the top. Blaney was all cream on Sunday; too bad he got iced at the end.

The setting of the Chase field post Richmond marks a clear delineation in the season between the haves and the have not’s. And judging by the fevered TV coverage of the top 12 drivers you’d have been forgiven if you wondered if the other 31 drivers were even in the race. So, with that in mind, and two months and eight races still to go, here are ten drivers who can’t wait to see the back of 2009 already. *Dale Earnhardt Jr.* Hands up those who predicted Junior’s season would be quite this bad? Not so many of you, huh? It’s true that anybody can have a bad season, heck the Cubbies have had a hundred of them, but the futility felt by the denizens of Wrigley Field must compare, in part, to that felt by Junior Nation. To say this year has been horrible for Junior barely does justice to the hot mess his season has become. Just two top 5s, three further top 10s, four DNFs and an average finish of 21.8 is not what was expected – not even by those who don’t rate NASCAR’s favorite driver. The simple truth is that the season can’t end soon enough for the wheelman of the No. 88 Chevy.

Kyle Busch tried blocking Tony Stewart once too often on the final lap. Stewart took the win while Busch took a savage ride into the wall and through the pack.

The Cup Series’ trip to wine country in Sonoma, Calif. sure seemed to be worth the extra gas bill. The inevitable fuel-strategy gambles and unpredictable mishaps that Infineon Raceway commonly produces shuffled up the running order many times during Sunday’s race. The racing action through the pack was tight and fender-banging, especially in the closing laps, helping to cure the spacious, snooze-worthy action of the past couple of weeks in Michigan and Pocono. Despite the race boiling down to fuel strategy, the best driver and car combination won the event. Kasey Kahne survived several restarts and held off an almost equal car and superior driver in Tony Stewart. Not every team was as lucky, as some Chase hopefuls took hits in the points and others that have struggled all year continued that trend. Here are this week’s HOT, WARM and COLD drivers.

If you make the long and winding drive down Long Pond Drive you’ll come upon the Speedway in the woods known as Pocono Raceway. In 2008, this track was nothing short of disaster for the bubble teams and 2009 wasn’t much kinder to them. It started Friday when qualifying was rained out, meaning that the teams would have to start from the rear of the field. Add in the fact that passing is so difficult in these cars and it’s a long grueling race anyway and you have a long afternoon for the teams hovering around the Top 35. The end result was only Michael Waltrip posting a top-25 finish among our drivers and that included a pair of spins. So to see how badly the bubble teams struggled on Sunday, read on in this week’s edition of the Bubble Breakdown.

Well the 24 Hours of Charlotte finally came to an end late Monday afternoon and the 50th running of the Coca-Cola 600 was dominated by Kyle Busch and the weather. The race never went green on Sunday and suffered rain delays again on Monday before finally being called and producing a surprise winner. So to see which bubble teams gambled on the weather and won, and which wound up all wet, read this week’s edition of the Bubble Breakdown.

Just like Jeremy Mayfield's test results, the Lady In Black wasn't kind to everyone to tried to conquer her this weekend. While there were some great days for teams on the right side of the bubble, many of the cars outside it saw their bubble burst with wrecks or poor qualifying runs that hampered overall performance. As a result, while no one new moved into the Top 35 this week, some teams had a chance to put distance between themselves and the rest of the pack. To see which ones had the most success - and who's still in danger - read on to see this week's edition of the Bubble Breakdown.