What so often separates championship teams from the also-rans is exactly how they respond when adversity hits and they have an opportunity to either be felled by misfortune or rise to the occasion. It takes the right combination of skill, fortitude, preparedness -- and luck.
Midway through Sunday's NASCAR playoff opener at Atlanta Motor Speedway, disaster almost struck reigning Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney when he was hit in his left rear quarter panel as Chris Buescher shot up the racetrack, sending him sliding off Turn 2 and down to the inside of the racetrack where he was struck by Martin Truex Jr. Blaney sustained heavy left side damage, and his crew spent an extensive amount of time trying to patch it up on pit road -- but they avoided much more than cosmetic damage, a favorable hand to be dealt compared to Buescher who suffered terminal damage and Truex who suffered heavy suspension damage that took him out of contention.
Not only did Blaney stay on the lead lap, but he was able to once again work through the field, damaged car and all, before deciding the race by pushing fellow Team Penske driver Joey Logano to the lead and the win in the final laps and earning a third-place finish for himself.
Two different stories on two different sides of the car. But the same result.
— Steven Taranto (@STaranto92) September 9, 2024
P3 for the defending Cup champ.@Blaney | #NASCARPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/3gcS0Fm3lw
"Honestly, I can't believe we got back up where we did," Blaney told NBC Sports. "The 12 boys did a really good job fixing it. I'm surprised it didn't have more damage than what it did. From my seat, I got drilled in the left rear, the door I guess is where it hit me. The right rear got off the fence. I didn't know how damaged we were.
"I was kind of able to carve up through traffic, could kind of get through the middle pretty good. ... This thing looks ugly, but really good finish. Proud of the effort by everybody."
Thanks to that effort, Blaney now assumes the CBS Sports NASCAR Power Rankings lead, just ahead of his teammate Logano, following Atlanta's playoff opener and entering the next race of the Round of 16 at Watkins Glen.
| Rank | Driver | Change | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ryan Blaney | Ryan Blaney joked with teammate Austin Cindric in post-race that he "Tokyo Drifted" his car in the accident off Turn 2 that almost spelled disaster for him. Sorry sir, but this is an Initial D household and I have the Eurobeat playlist to prove it. | ||
| 2 | Joey Logano | With Joey Logano now on to the Round of 12 despite a pedestrian regular season, it feels like anything is possible for him and it probably is. Bear in mind: Logano has been in the Championship 4 every even-numbered year dating back to 2014. | ||
| 3 | Tyler Reddick | It says a lot about Michael Jordan's level of investment in NASCAR when it's no longer especially noteworthy that he's at the racetrack. MJ was up atop Tyler Reddick's pit box again in Atlanta, as he's all-in on trying to become a Cup champion car owner. | ||
| 4 | Daniel Suarez | What a time to be a fan of Mexican racing drivers. Not only did you have Daniel Suarez finishing second in Atlanta with the great Adrian Fernandez in attendance, but you also have Pato O'Ward at the center of IndyCar and Sergio Perez having signed a two-year deal to continue driving for Red Bull in F1. | ||
| 5 | Christopher Bell | Eventually I'm going to stop being so surprised with Christopher Bell and just give him his due as a pretty good speedway racer. After finishing fourth at Atlanta, that's three top fives in five speedway races this year. | ||
| 6 | Ty Gibbs | It looked like Atlanta was going to be Ty Gibbs' day for awhile, but it wasn't to be after he got shuffled out on the next-to-last restart. Maybe this week will be the week, as Gibbs has excelled in Xfinity competition at The Glen and ran fifth there in Cup a year ago. | ||
| 7 | Austin Cindric | Though he got his very first Xfinity Series win at Watkins Glen back in 2019, Austin Cindric is still looking to have similar success there in a Cup car. He ran 13th there in his rookie year of 2022 and 16th a year ago. | ||
| 8 | Chase Elliott | Watkins Glen being a playoff race this year is great news for Chase Elliott. From 2018 to 2019, Elliott won twice at The Glen before backing it up with a runner-up in 2021 and a fourth-place finish (in a race he likely should have won) in 2022. | ||
| 9 | Kyle Busch | If only Kyle Busch and his team could start the season over. Since the Olympic break gave him a chance to snap out of his funk, Busch has had an average finish of 5.4 the past five races and yet again put himself in position to win a race in Atlanta. | ||
| 10 | Alex Bowman | Good for Alex Bowman that he finished fifth in Atlanta after a week of having to fight off a rumor that his future at Hendrick Motorsports hinges on his playoff performance. The way I see it, any questions about Bowman's future should have been quieted by his win at Chicago and the way he's bounced back this season after injuries the past two years. | ||
| 11 | William Byron | Here's a good pattern if you're a William Byron fan: Hendrick Motorsports has won five Watkins Glen races in a row between three different drivers. Prior to Byron's win a year ago, both Hendrick drivers to win at The Glen -- Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson -- did so in back-to-back years. | ||
| 12 | Brad Keselowski | There was a time where Brad Keselowski was among the best at Watkins Glen, including in 2012 when he and Marcos Ambrose battled for the win on the final lap with virtually the entire track being a massive oil slick. But since 2016, he has just one top-10 finish and none since back in 2019. | ||
| 13 | Ross Chastain | The sight of a clean-shaven Ross Chastain this weekend was so jarring that I had to go investigate during Tech Day. Ross told me he figured "why not" and shaved following the Southern 500. Usually shaves during the offseason -- and he also prefers electric shaves. | ||
| 14 | Kyle Larson | What was alarming about Kyle Larson's crash at Atlanta was the suddenness of the way his car snapped and slammed the wall as well as the fairly extreme amount of damage his car incurred. It was a welcome sight to see him get out of that thing. | ||
| 15 | Denny Hamlin | It's jarring to think of just how poorly Denny Hamlin's weekend at Atlanta went. Even after getting to the bottom of a drivetrain issue that spoiled his qualifying lap, Hamlin's car neither went fast or handled well, and Joe Gibbs Racing is probably glad it got junked on the final lap. | ||
| 16 | Chase Briscoe | More than anything with Chase Briscoe, I'm just glad he didn't hit Kyle Larson in the driver's side door like I initially thought he might. Still, Briscoe had a hard hit in that wreck as well and went from the high of a walk-off Southern 500 win to having to try and climb out of a 20-point hole. | ||
| 17 | Harrison Burton | Harrison Burton went from potentially getting a top 15 or better at Atlanta to not even being able to cross the finish line with a wrecked racecar. The missed opportunity to set himself up well points-wise could prove very costly, very quickly to his chances of making it past the Round of 16. | ||
| 18 | Martin Truex Jr. | Despite a disastrous start to the Round of 16 a year ago, Martin Truex Jr. was able to stave off elimination all the way until Martinsville by virtue of being the regular-season champion. This year, there's no such surplus of points for Truex to fall back on, which makes how Truex runs these next two weeks after a suspension failure at Atlanta very important. | ||
| 19 | Bubba Wallace | -- | Bubba Wallace's series of bad late-race breaks continued at Atlanta, as he went from potentially earning a top-10 finish to getting wrecked in the final corner. He'll probably be looking for just a clean day at Watkins Glen, where he finished 12th a year ago. | |
| 20 | Chris Buescher | Just an idle observation: I couldn't help but think that parking Chris Buescher right next to the playoff drivers in the garage area was twisting the knife a bit. The garage stalls at Atlanta are set by owner points, and Buescher was parked right next to Martin Truex Jr. by virtue of being 17th in the standings and the first driver to have missed the playoffs. | ||
| 21 | Michael McDowell | It's been pretty remarkable how Michael McDowell has gone from having no poles in 465 Cup starts prior to 2024 to having five this season and six front row starts overall. With McDowell off to Spire Motorsports next season, whoever ends up with the cars McDowell has had on speedways this year has to be licking their chops. | ||
| 22 | Carson Hocevar | Carson Hocevar lacks experience at Watkins Glen, but it isn't a complete unknown to him either. In 2021, Hocevar finished fourth in an ARCA race at The Glen for car owner Cody Efaw. | ||
| 23 | Corey LaJoie | Corey LaJoie followed up his top 10 in the Southern 500 with a top-15 finish at Atlanta. That's the first time that's happened this season since he followed up a top 10 in the Daytona 500 with a top 15 at…Atlanta back in February. | ||
| 24 | Justin Haley | It's not often that NASCAR calls drivers for forcing others below the yellow line (They didn't even do it to Joey Logano for his move on Daniel Suarez), but with how obvious Haley made his block on Tyler Reddick I certainly got why they made the call they did. Haley nevertheless did a nice job battling back for a 12th-place finish. | ||
| 25 | Daniel Hemric | Daniel Hemric has low-key been one of the most consistent drivers in speedway races all throughout the 2024 season. After being in the mix before top-20 finishes in both the Daytona 500 and first Atlanta race, Hemric has since finished ninth at Talladega, ninth at Daytona in August and 11th in Atlanta's fall race. | ||
| 26 | Austin Dillon | The next three weeks, at least, are going to present a lot of what-ifs for Austin Dillon and RCR in terms of if they'd been allowed to keep their playoff spot. Dillon's 20th-place finish at Atlanta would've at least been good for 11th in class among Round of 16 contenders. | ||
| 27 | Todd Gilliland | Color me surprised that Todd Gilliland wasn't more of a factor at Atlanta. After leading the most laps there back in February with a dominant car, Gilliland didn't lead a single time in the return trip despite qualifying third. | ||
| 28 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | All in all, a really good day in Atlanta for Ricky Stenhouse Jr. He ran up inside the top 10 for much of the race before notching a 14th-place finish, his eighth top 15 of the year. | ||
| 29 | Ryan Preece | -- | Should the rumors of Ryan Preece moving to a third car at RFK Racing be realized, it'll come nearly 30 years after the team originally expanded to three cars with the hiring of Jeff Burton for the 1996 season. Needless to say, that move worked out very well for everyone involved. | |
| 30 | Josh Berry | Josh Berry struggled with an ill-handling car at Atlanta on his way to finishing 28th, and next week isn't likely to offer him the bounce back he needs. His struggles on road courses this year have been well-documented, as he hasn't finished better than 32nd in any road race this season. |
