Sunday night’s race was the first for the series at the .875-mile short track, which has hosted Xfinity, Truck, ARCA and IndyCar series events in the past.
In a race where teams were wary of tire wear – and several paid the price by hitting the wall after flats Blaney and his No. 12 Penske Ford team mastered the strategy.
On the final caution of the race, Blaney was first off pit road and took just two new right-side tires. The race – which had eight cautions – ended with an 84-lap green-flag run and Blaney was never seriously challenged for the lead.
William Byron and Chase Elliott – who both took four tires on the final stop – tried to run Blaney down but to no avail. Blaney edged Byron by 0.716 seconds at the checkered flag to secure his first win of the year.
Blaney led four times for a race-high 201 laps on his way to the 11th win of his career and second for Penske in the last three races. It was Blaney’s teammate, Austin Cindric, who won at Gateway two weeks ago when Blaney ran out of gas on the final lap while leading.
Watch: Ryan Blaney wins Cup Series’ first race at Iowa Speedway
Elliott ended up third, Christopher Bell – who started from the rear of the field in a backup car – was fourth and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. rounded out the top five.
Completing the top-10 were Joey Logano, Josh Berry, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suarez and Brad Keselowski.
Stage 1
Blaney passed Kyle Larson with nine laps remaining and held on to win Stage 1 by 0.260 seconds, his second stage win of the 2024 season. Suarez finished third, Byron fourth and Berry fifth.
A.J. Allmendinger was the first to experience a tire issue in the race, hitting the Turn 1 wall on lap 52 after the right-front went down on his No. 16 Chevrolet. He retired from the race after 54 laps.
Stage 2
Larson came from 33rd to first and held off Berry by 1.762 second to claim the Stage 2 win, his eighth of the 2024 season.
Larson pit under caution on lap 86 when he thought he had a tire going down, but it showed no problems. Elliott was third, Blaney fourth and Bubba Wallace rounded out the top five.
Just after a round of green flag pit stops began, Ross Chastain had a right-front tire go down and tagged the wall, but he was able to nurse his No. 1 Chevrolet to pit road. He rebounded to finish 19th in the stage.
Stage 3
Following the break between Stages 2 and 3, most of the lead lap cars elected to pit with Keselowski first off pit road thanks to a…
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