Blaney blows tire in Kansas practice

A week after winning his way into the next round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, Ryan Blaney will have to come from the rear of the field at Kansas Speedway.

Blaney blew a tire early in Cup Series practice Saturday and hit the wall in Turn 2. Over the radio, he reported that he had blown a left rear tire, but once he drove the car back to the garage, it was found that the right-rear tire was the one that was down. The 2023 series champion was checked and released from the infield care center.

“Yeah, blew a tire,” Blaney said. “We’ll have to look at it and see why that was. I hate that we crashed the race car and stuff like that, but we’ll take a peek at what we need to do differently and hopefully come from the back tomorrow. I’m looking forward to getting the race started.”

Blaney entered Kansas as the only driver locked into the Round of 8 via his victory one week ago at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He'd run four laps in practice before the crash.

“I wouldn’t say I really had any feel of something kind of off until right before it went, honestly,” Blaney said. “It had that normal feeling to it until it blew. That’s kind of the hard thing about when you blow tires like that. They don’t feel way off, and then they kind of give out in the next moment. I didn’t have any caution beforehand. Just unfortunate. I hate to get a backup out and do all that deal, but we’ll fight through it. Like I said, I look forward to getting out there tomorrow and seeing what we’ve got.”