LOUDON, N.H. (WHDH) – A day that started with uncertainty for everyone at New Hampshire Motor Speedway ended with 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney overcoming adversity of his own to win the Dollar Tree 301 for the second year in a row. The key point in the race for Blaney came on pit road, when he pitted from the lead following the conclusion of stage two. The left front wheel did not tighten at first, leading to a longer stop. It caused Blaney to voice his frustrations over the radio.
“I have to just get it out in the open and then I get over it as soon as I say it, and I have to say it or else I’ll be stewing over it for a while,” said Blaney while opening up about the outburst. “[Spotter] Timmy [Fedewa] does a good job of having great reassurance when things happen and just be like ‘alright well, we’re going to do this the hard way’ and okay, that’s fine with me.”
The focus heading into Sunday’s race was on the skies. Steady rain moved into the area around the 2 P.M. start time, causing a delay of just under an hour with cars fitted with wet-weather tires to start the race. Polesitter Tyler Reddick held the lead into the first corner but spun out on the wet track in turn four and ended up in last place at the end of lap one.
Slick tires were put on the cars during the lap 40 competition caution, and multi-groove racing dominated the rest of the race. Blaney moved into second place just before lap 100, and chased Josh Berry for about 50 laps before completing the pass.
“I have a lot of respect for Josh as a racer, so I was never going to run him over,” Blaney said about his on-track battle with Berry. “That was fun, kind of trying lanes, battling; slip a little bit, lose some ground, try to pick it back up. That’s what good racing is all about.”
After the slow pit stop at the end of stage two, Blaney’s pit crew was able to get him back to the lead with a two-tire pit stop following a heavy crash between Riley Herbst and Connor Zilisch which brought out a caution on lap 225. Bubba Wallace challenged Blaney towards the end of the race, but Wallace locked up his brakes with five laps to go and could not catch him by the time Blaney crossed the finish line on lap 301.
“With twenty to go as I was working through traffic I started to struggle,” Blaney noted as Wallace began to cut into his lead. “I was just trying to maintain and not make a mistake. And if Bubba got there, he got there, and we’ll race it out.”
The win in Loudon is Blaney’s third of the season. The NASCAR Cup Series now transitions from the hills of New England to the beach in Florida, as the regular season wraps up next weekend at the Daytona International Speedway.
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