Just a few corners stood between Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 NASCAR Ford Mustang Dark Horse and the checkered flag at Homestead-Miami Speedway on October 27th, 2024. Enter the No. 45 Toyota TRD Camry of Tyler Reddick, who powered around using the uppermost lane on the last lap, blowing past Blaney like he was standing still. The pass was clean, but there might not have been a lot Blaney could have done to defend the top spot.
In an edition of Inside the Race, NASCAR Ford crew chiefs Drew Blickensderfer and Travis Peterson sat down to discuss Blaney’s downfall in the closing moments at Homestead. Blickensderfer serves on the box for Noah Gragson’s No. 10 Mustang while Peterson calls the shots for the No. 34 Mustang of Michael McDowell.
“Everybody just commits to the opposite lane of what they saw the guy in front of them do,” Peterson said. He said that Blaney’s decision to run the middle lane might have been his downfall. He couldn’t take air away from Reddick, or away from the No. 11 Camry of Denny Hamlin, who was also in the running. But there’s no good way to “air-block” at Homestead, so Blaney was in a tough spot no matter where he decided to run.
Blaney dove back to the middle to try and maintain the lead through the final corners, but Reddick saw a chance and went for it. Had Blaney entered the corner a bit higher, he could have taken Reddick’s air away and stalled the No. 45 Camry’s run, but that wasn’t how it went down.
“The 45 just commits,” Peterson said. “He really just had to get side-by-side with the 12 and somehow made it work.”
Looking at SMT data – which shows timing and scoring plus telemetry – revealed that Reddick abruptly yanked his car to the right, which isn’t an ideal move to make in the corner. But Reddick was committed and made the pass work, relegating Blaney to a painful runner-up result.
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