Ryan Blaney finishes second at Texas in his Penske Dodge

Ryan Blaney (No. 22 Discount Tire Dodge Challenger) Finished Second

YOU FINISHED SECOND. WHERE DID YOU COME FROM THOSE LAST 20 LAPS? “Jeremy (Bullins, crew chief) made a good call there late in the race. We stayed out when everyone else decided to take their last set of stickers. It was a gamble but a pretty good gamble if a caution comes out. I can’t thank Discount Tire enough for being on board and Jeremy for making good calls and these guys definitely stuck with us all weekend. We weren’t the best early in the week but these guys hung in with me. We almost got there at the end but just didn’t really get clear of traffic soon enough.”

Ryan Blaney

Photo by: Getty Images

Jeremy Bullins (Crew Chief, No. 12 Discount Tire Dodge Challenger)

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE DECISION TO NOT PIT DURING THE SECOND TO LAST CAUTION TO GAIN TRACK POSITION? “It was definitely a gamble and it could have gone the other way. The good thing is that when we did come into pit late for four tires we only lost one position and had fresh rubber on the car. Ryan (Blaney) was doing a great job in the Discount Tire Dodge and we knew that if we got one more caution that we could drive to the front with fresh tires. It fell our way. We had 20 laps to take advantage of fresh tires and just fell short. We got up to second, I’m not going to be greedy, but I would have liked to have one more caution to see if we could have caught the 33 (Kevin Harvick).”

WAS IT A DECISION THAT IF YOU PITTED FOR TWO TIRES YOU WOULDN’T HAVE CAUGHT THE LEADERS? “It’s one of those things where you want to win the race. We could have pitted with everyone and put tires on and finished sixth or seventh but we rolled the dice and tried to get the win. We took the best chance at trying to win the race and felt that was the best call. Everyone was putting there last set of tires on. We saved ours and raced all the way up to second trying to win the race. We just missed.”

Sam Hornish Jr. (No. 12 Alliance Truck Parts Dodge Challenger) Finished Seventh “Just a strange night. We did everything today not to win the race. Not really surprised that we finished seventh. It’s too bad. Trying to get around the lines on pit road, the call came late on where the pit box was. I could see it but nobody said anything. It’s hard to get stopped. Then we had a loose wheel and had to come in, take tires earlier than we would have liked. We ended up where we ended up. The Alliance Truck Parts Dodge was fast; we just gave up too much track position. Over the long runs the car was fast. We just got too tight there at the end of the race and just burned the tires off the car late in the race trying to come up through the field.”

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