Initially, Blaney took the checkered flag ahead of Denny Hamlin but a caution was displayed on the final lap for Ricky Stenhouse Jr. getting into the backstretch wall.
Under normal rules, Blaney would have been declared the winner but under special rules for Sunday night’s race, the winner had to take the victory under a green flag.
That sent the final 50-lap segment at Texas Motor Speedway into a two-lap overtime but with a problem – Blaney, thinking he had won, had already let down the window net on the driver’s side of his No. 12 Ford.
Blaney jury-rigged the netting as best he could on the restart and then held off Hamlin by 0.266 seconds to officially claim the All-Star victory.
The situation did not sit well with some as NASCAR rules specifically require window netting fasteners to be “properly tightened and remain tight during an event.”
The win is not an official one in the Cup Series, but Blaney has been one of the top-performing drivers this season despite lacking a victory.
“It was looking real bad for us. I thought the race was over and I let the window net down. I do want to thank NASCAR for letting kind of fix it and not make us come down pit road,” Blaney said. “Yeah, that was really tough.
“Then I had to kind of do it all over again after getting that window net back up there. Great car. This No. 12 group did a great job. This is cool. I know it’s not a points-winning race but it’s going to be a lot of fun and the party’s going to be pretty big.”
Austin Cindric finished third, Joey Logano fourth and Daniel Suarez rounded out the top-five.
Completing the top-10 were Alex Bowman, A.J. Allmendinger, Chris Buescher, Brad Keselowski and Christopher Bell.
Stage 4
Thanks to his previous stage victory, Cindric started the final 50-lap segment on the pole with teammates Blaney (Stage 3 winner) in second and Logano (pit stop winner) third. When the stage went green, Suarez lined up fourth and Hamlin fifth.
Blaney quickly…
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