“Brad and Joey, they definitely reminded me of that this week. They’re like, hey you know, we won in that thing. We won two in a row with two different drivers, don’t mess it up. Its pretty much what you don’t wanna to do. They were definitely reminding me of that, and it is in the back of your mind.” explained Blaney, “Your like man, you never want to be the person that breaks the streak of wins, especially when the car is going so fast. That’s a huge feat to do to win three in a row with three different drivers at three different race tracks. That is really amazing, and that is nice to be a part of.”
Though it was a dominating win for Blaney, things were wild during the first two stages of the race, which tallied seven of the eight total cautions of the race.
Here’s how it all went down Saturday afternoon at Texas Motor Speedway.
Blaney led the field to the drop of the green flag to get the 2018 My Bariatric solutions 300 underway at Texas Motor Speedway. On lap three Chad Finchum in the No. 40 Smithbuilt Homes Toyota got loose coming out of turn two and spun into the wall to bring out our first caution of the day.
The caution came out again on lap eight as Jamie McMurray’s No. 42 DC Solar Chevrolet got loose coming out of turn four and hot the right rear slightly into the wall sending him for a ride through the front straightaway grass.
Then just as soon as we got restarted, the yellow came out again as Vinnie Miller in the No. 1 JAS Expedited Trucking Chevrolet got loose out of turn two and took a spin to bring out the third caution of the day.
Meanwhile, Kevin Harvick in the No. 98 Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford had made his way up to 14th place after just 25 laps into the race after starting 39th, with 11 of those laps coming under caution.
Things would remain clean the rest of stage one as Blaney maintained the lead from start to finish. Harvick continued to make his push to the front of the pack, coming in at the 8th position at the end of stage one.
Blaney would win the battle off of pit road and maintain his top spot. Harvick slid through the pits and had to back up, putting him back to 14th on the restart.
With just 20 laps left in the 2nd stage, the fifth caution of the day came out as Spencer Gallagher in the No. 23 Allegiant Chevrolet got loose coming out of turn four and went for a 360 spin on the front straight away.
At this point, Harvick had made his way up to the 5th position, with Blaney still out in front.
On the restart, Christopher Bell in the No. 20 GameStop Toyota got Blaney a bit loose coming out of turn two to take the lead. Blaney would drop to fourth as Bell maintained the lead. Harvick jumped up to up to third, however trouble in the pits later on in the race would see Harvick take a 19th place finish home.
Shortly after, the 6th caution of the day flew as Finchum found himself in trouble for the 2nd time of the day, getting loose in turn two.
Most of the leaders would come down to pit road during the caution, putting Brandon Jones in the No. 19 Toyota Services Center Toyota in the lead. After a lengthy cleanup, we saw a one-lap shootout to end-stage one, with Jones holding strong out front taking the stage victory.
As the final stage got underway, it was Daniel Hemric in the No 21 South Point Hotel & Casino Chevrolet bringing the field to the green flag. The just two laps later, the 8th caution of the day came out as Jones hit the wall and collected the No. 36 of Alex Labbe, who spun in front of Ryan Seig in the No. 39 RV General Store Chevrolet. Seig would avoid most of the incident as he bailed into the front stretch grass. Kaz Grala in the No. 24 NETTTS Ford was involved as well.
With 95 laps to the green flag dropped once again with Hemric out in the front of the pack. It would take Blaney 20 laps to get to the back bumper of Hemric, where he would then take seven laps to make the pass on Hemric for the lead.
With just 57 laps to go, Blaney came into the pits, giving up the lead to Bell. 11 laps later, Blaney would be back in the lead as green flag pit stops cycled around. 2nd place at this point was Bell, who was 3.2 seconds behind Blaney.
Ryan Blaney would maintain his lead as he cruised to his first Xfinity victory of the season, and seventh overall in the Xfinity Series. Bell would finish second as the highest finishing rookie of the race.