NASCAR insider issues 'heartbreaking' Ryan Blaney wreck verdict

This was the very definition of NASCAR playoff heartbreak and it leaves Ryan Blaney with a postseason mountain to climb in 2025.

The 2023 champion saw his hopes of claiming a second Cup Series title suffer a massive blow in Las Vegas on Sunday as he finished dead last of the 38 cars.

The 31-year-old Ohio native met with disaster during the first stage of the South Point 400 when his No. 12 Ford suffered significant damage in contact with the wall after his left front tire had blown out.

Blaney limped back to the pits but was unable to continue, completing a disastrous start to the Round of 8 as the battle for a championship really starts to hot up.

The Team Penske star is now at the bottom of the playoff standings heading to Talladega this weekend, some 31 points below the cutline.

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Letarte on Blaney Vegas disaster

It was a moment which NASCAR insider Steve Letarte described as “heartbreaking”, believing that there was literally nothing Blaney or Penske could have done about it.

Speaking postrace, he said: “So I’m gonna let 'em off the hook here just because no one else had any issues. I think the biggest advantage is in the rear air pressure, the way I understand it.

"So I’m gonna say this is just a super unfortunate situation for the left front to fail on the 12 car, run over a piece of debris.

“If this had been a rear tire and he instantly found a tremendous amount of speed, I hope the fans know that I would have hit the gavel and said ‘well they did it to themselves’. But I just don’t believe that’s the case here.

"I could be wrong but I didn’t have any of the evidence in front of me. Really all weekend long, everybody I talked to, there wasn’t a lot of fear with front tire issues."

A 'bad luck situation' for Team Penske star

Ultimately, Letarte summed this up as a “bad luck situation”, one which could end Blaney’s hopes of claiming a second championship when all is said and done.

“So I think this is what makes auto racing heartbreaking," he added. "This is what emotionally emptied my bucket and forced me go to TV. You can only do so many things right for something abstract to go wrong, and then here’s Blaney at the bottom.

“Look, he didn’t have the best car here but we don’t know how it would have shook out. All you want is a chance to see and they were eliminated by what I’m gonna consider is just a bad luck situation.”

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