(Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography)
By Aaron Bearden

The record books will show that Ryan Blaney won the 2022 NASCAR All-Star Race. 

What they won’t show is that he basically won it twice. 

An unexpected caution right at the end of regulation and an altered ruleset for the spring exhibition race resulted in the most controversial conclusion to a race in NASCAR’s Next Gen era. 

How it Happened

Blaney was among the quickest cars in Sunday’s 125-lap shootout. He’d qualified second behind Kyle Busch through the unique pit crew-focused time trials on Saturday and, when Busch crashed out, emerged as the de-facto favorite for the win. 

The race featured three 25-lap opening stages that awarded winners the chance to start first through third for the final stage. It took Blaney until the third one to pick up a win, but Busch’s crash after a Stage 1 win meant that the Team Penske star was able to restart second alongside his Stage 2-winning teammate, Austin CIndric, on the front row for the final stage. 

When the green flag waved, Blaney shot by CIndric on the high lane and never looked back, surviving a mid-stage caution and pulling away in the late stages to what seemed like a comfortable win.

He took the white flag well in front, rose off of Turn 4 to the sight of the checkered flag and flew by the start-finish line before lowering his window net. The No. 12 team celebrated on pit road, hugging and cheering. 

All seemed well, but there was a catch.

The race wasn’t over. 

Unbeknownst to Blaney and the team, an issue for Ricky Stenhouse Jr. led him to slide up into the wall at the exit of Turn 2.

Race officials quickly put out the caution. Blaney nearly reached the end of the race. But just as he was crossing under the start-finish line, the track was lit up with the sight of yellow caution lights. 

In a normal race, that wouldn’t have mattered. The next flag after the white typically ends the race. But the All-Star Race has a special ruleset. One such rule this year was the necessity for the winner to reach the checkered flag under green for the race to be over. 

The moment was a shocker – not just for Blaney, but for everyone watching. Not only had the caution come out at the last possible second, but it was thrown for the most innocuous of causes. Stenhouse hadn’t even fully crashed and wasn’t a threat to those around him. 

NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller later owned up that the race director may have been too trigger happy when the caution was displayed. 

“Everybody knows that we probably prematurely called that yellow flag,” Miller told assembled media after the race. “The way that works in the tower is that we’re all watching around the racetrack and obviously, the race director who has the button and makes the call is the final say of when the yellow gets put out. 

“We all watch, and we saw and mentioned the car against the wall, riding the wall down the back straightaway, and the race director looked up, and I’m not sure what he saw, but he immediately put (the yellow flag) out.

“So, wish we wouldn’t have done that, but we did that, and we’ll own that we probably prematurely put that caution out.”

Fair or not, the caution necessitated NASCAR overtime to complete the race. Blaney would have to refocus and defend for two laps to secure his $1 million prize. 

Blaney had an issue, too. He couldn’t get his window net back up. 

“None of us knew that you had to see the checkered flag, I guess,” Blney admitted afterward. “I think we just had it locked in our heads that the leader takes the white flag, and the next flag ends the race. I guess that wasn’t the case. But we all thought it. I thought it. 

“Josh (Williams, spotter) said we won. Jonathan (Hassler, crew chief) got on the radio and said congrats. So, on the backstretch, I took the window net down, and then Josh told me off of (Turn) 4 they’re saying the race isn’t over and you need to end under green.” 

For a few seconds, Blaney was furious. Then he realized his new issue. The window net would need to be secured for him to take the ensuing green flag. 

Doing so wouldn’t be easy. Securing the window net is a task typically done by crew members on pit road without any other distractions. Performing the task from inside of the car wouldn’t be easy. 

And it wasn’t. Blaney fidgeted with the window for multiple laps before seemingly getting it loosely reconnected. 

“I could get millimeters away from latching it, and I’d have to give up,” he admitted afterward. “My shoulder is going to be junk in the morning.

“But I was able to get it latched, finally, enough to where it was up and sealed and NASCAR deemed it safe.”

Concerns over the window net continued, particularly given its safety risk compared to the supposed safety issue of Stenhouse grazing the wall that yielded the caution in the first place. 

Some called NASCAR to bring Blaney down to pit road to fix the window net without losing position – it was an exhibition, after all. He wouldn’t be gaining any advantage. Others believed Blaney should be black-flagged and forced to have the issue fixed, effectively costing him the million-dollar prize. 

Few expected NASCAR to let hm stay out with the issue. But they deemed the window net okay prior to the restart after Blaney’s loose latching of it. 

Miller said afterward that the sanctioning body had “no way we could have known it it was latched properly or not.” 

“If it was hanging down on the door, if he couldn’t get it to where it was up and we had some doubt that it was latched, then we would have had to do something with it because we wouldn’t have allowed him to start if it was laying down on the door.”

From there, the race concluded with little dramatics. Blaney refocused, pulled clear of Denny Hamlin on the ensuing restart and marched off to the win he thought he’d earned minutes earlier. 

That’s not to say that everyone was happy with the outcome. A frustrated Hamlin echoed that “you have to play by the rules,” though he also acknowledged that Blaney was the rightful winner in the end given the nature of the preceding caution. 

“It’s tough because he deserved to win the race, but if you mess up and you break a rule, not intentionally, but there are rules, and we have rules in place for safety,” Hamlin said. “My crew chief is taking four weeks off because of safety.

“What if I sent him into traffic and he has no window net, then what?” Hamlin later added. “Then they have a lawsuit on their hands. 

“That’s the rule. I don’t know what we’re talking about here. That’s not a judgement call. You got to play by the f—— rules.”

Hamlin’s point didn’t fall on deaf ears. Earlier in the same race there’d been an accident in the window net area, when Ross Chastain couldn’t maneuver his way around the slowed car of Busch after the two-time Cup champion suffered a flat tire. 

Blaney understood Hamlin’s position after the race. 

“I’d be upset, too, if I was in his position,” Blaney said of Hamlin. “You’re running second and the guy makes a mistake and puts the window net down, and you expect it to be handed to you and the leader get black flagged. … But obviously, I’m not going to say I’m frustrated about it. 

“It worked out for us. We had the best car all night. We were leading the race three seconds before the last caution. 

“I can understand where he’s coming from. But that’s just a product of running second compared to winning. He would be over the moon elated if in my position if he won the race, and I’d be ticked off just like he was if I was second. So it just depends on the spot.”

Through all the criticism and confusion of the final few minutes, NASCAR luckily ended with the same winner in the record books it would have had if the final caution hadn’t flown. 

The only thing that changed was the preferred trophy. 

“I’m going to frame that window net and put it over my mantle,” Blaney said. 

Hopefully it’ll be a bit easier to mount than it was to latch. 

(Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography)
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Aaron Bearden All-Star Race Denny Hamlin Featured NASCAR Cup Series Ryan Blaney