Ryan Blaney Wins at Pocono, Where It All Began for the 2023 NASCAR Champion

• Ryan Blaney's 2017 win at Pocono was the Wood's Brother's 99th win, the team is still chasing their 100th since Blaney's move to Penske in 2018.

• Track position and speed in the final stage secured Blaney's victory.

• Roger Penske secures a three-race weekend sweep between IndyCar and NASCAR

Seven years ago, Ryan Blaney won his first Cup race for Woods Brothers Racing at Pocono Raceway; Sunday evening, the driver of the Penske No. 12 secured his 12th career victory and second of the summer.

"It was super special to win here seven years ago with the Wood Brothers and just as special today with Penske," Blaney told NASCAR on NBC.

On the final pit stop, Blaney exited pit row second with a 6.0-second pit stop, going light on fuel; on the restart, he inherited the first position after Kyle Larson was hit with a speeding penalty for speeding in section seven.

Blaney was able to pull a shorter pit stop on the final restart by giving up his third-place run to pit with three laps remaining in the second stage, pitting earlier than the other leaders and sacrificing stage points for a better shot of winning his second race of the season. Denny Hamlin, who would finish second, stayed out to capture the stage win and playoff point but paid the price in pitting later.

“Our plan was to have track position at the end because we knew our car was fast enough,” Blaney said post-race.

His first win of the 2024 season came in NASCAR's inaugural Iowa Cup race; notably, his Penske "teammates" in IndyCar swept IndyCar's doubleheader at Iowa Speedway earlier this weekend with Scott McLaughlin's win on Saturday and Will Power's earlier on Sunday.

Blaney controlled the final 40 laps as chaos further down in the field set up multiple restarts. First, when Corey LaJoie got into Kyle Busch, the No. 8 driver was sent pinballing up the track, collecting four cars, including AJ Allmendinger, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, and Ryan Preece.

With eight laps remaining, Hamlin made it past Alex Bowman to attempt to hunt down Blaney but couldn't get within striking distance of the reigning champion.

"It was really hard for me to even get close to reel him in," Hamlin told NASCAR on NBC.

Bowman would finish third for his second-best finish in the 2024 season, one week after ending his 80-race winless streak with a win at the Chicago Street Course.

While his confidence is being rebuilt, Bowman stated that it's hard to be happy with third when you restart on the front row.

"[It's] Hard to be satisfied when you restart on the front row and can’t get the job down," Bowman said.

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