Blaney dominant in U.S. Cellular 250 win at Iowa Speedway

NEWTON - The U.S. Cellular 250 at Iowa Speedway was scheduled for 250 laps.

At the checkered flag, Ryan Blaney had led 252.

OK, so the race was extended to 260 laps with multiple green-white-checker finish attempts. But such was the kind of dominant effort the driver of the No. 22 Penske Ford had in securing his first NASCAR Xfinity win of 2015 and third of his career.

Blaney had to overcome four restarts inside of 20 laps to go, two of which that came in a green-white-checker scenario.

'It took me a lap before I could really get going, and on green-white-checkers, you never know what could happen,” Blaney said. 'It's not ideal - at all. You have a great car and those late cautions are just chances to give it away. Not only for me slipping up and missing the corner, but you never know what could happen.

'You just don't know. And that's what makes it stressful. But you've just got to stay focused at the task at hand and try to hit your marks like you have all night.”

His season has been filled with near-misses and close losses, most notably last week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He lost the lead on the final lap to Kyle Busch after having a sizable lead just a few laps before that.

The dejection he felt after that race was mirrored by his joy at getting another win at Iowa Speedway. His crew chief, Greg Irwin, addressed Blaney and the team's perspective on it after the race, saying this allows them to completely put Indianapolis behind them.

'As far as last week, that's over, that's done with. I don't really want to see the replays anymore - I know he doesn't,” Irwin said. 'We don't even really want to talk about it. It's one of those things you go through when you expect to be operating at a top level, and it happens to everybody. That's over and done with. He came back and dominated the race.”

Blaney's record number of laps led for Iowa Speedway was just one among a few milestones marked in the victory.

His win was the third straight in the U.S. Cellular 250 for the No. 22 car, which won the last two with Brad Keselowski behind the wheel. He also got his fifth top-5 and sixth top-10 finish in seven Xfinity races this season.

It comes as no surprise he broke through for the win he so desperately wanted at Iowa, where he holds a career average finish of 5.4 in the Xfinity Series after his win - never having finished outside the top 10 in five starts. He also has a win and three top-10s in four Camping World Truck Series starts at Iowa.

'I don't really know (what it is about Iowa),” Blaney said. 'We've always had good runs here, whether it's Truck or Xfinity cars and I don't really know what it is. It's a fun racetrack. Our cars always seem to work well here, whether it's Brad (Keselowski's) stuff or Penske stuff. And as a driver, I really like the racetrack. You can run from the bottom to the top, and I think that's something we really migrated to in the last year.

'It pushed this place over the top even more.”

While Blaney was weathering the restarts and holding off challenges from second-place finisher Regan Smith and fifth-place finisher Brendan Gaughn, chaos reigned behind them.

Teammates Chris Buescher and Darrell Wallace Jr. made contact, eventually resulting in a flat tire for Buescher that relegated him to 13th at the finish, and prompted a succinct but heated exchange on pit road after. The spring Daytona winner Ryan Reed and JD Motorsports driver Ross Chastain made contact on one of the restarts, and it was enough that Reed gave Chastain a shove and got in his face as the two exited their cars. Chase Elliott, who sits 20 points behind Buescher in the championship, recovered from a wreck with Brandon Jones with 19 to go to finish ninth.

Nearly every car that came to pit road after the finish - including Blaney, who had a left-rear tire rub thanks to contact from Gaughn on the first green-white-checker - had some type of damage or paint swap. Saturday night short track racing was in full effect.

As the series moves forward the next few weeks, with road courses and short tracks the only venues, Smith said the carry-over could be entertaining for those watching.

'I think it's interesting. If tempers are flaring that much tonight, we've got two straight road courses coming up, Bristol and another road course,” Smith said. 'These next four weeks could be interesting as hell. We might all need boxing lessons before it's over.”

Kenny Wallace finished 15th in his final NASCAR start.

GASE TAKES DNF WITH TRANSMISSION WOES

Headed into the NASCAR Xfinity Series U.S. Cellular 250 on Saturday night at Iowa Speedway, Cedar Rapids native Joey Gase was as optimistic as he's ever been about his car at a short track.

Extra sponsorship by way of ForeverHip.com and Iowa Donor Network had bought his team the full allotment of tires - almost unique to every other race - and hired a talented pit crew.

But 134 laps into the race, something internal - most likely the transmission - failed and ended Gase's race early and relegating him to a 34th place finish.

'Something started to vibrate really bad and it also would not go,” Gase said. 'It didn't matter what gear I was in, it would do the same thing.

'We're pretty certain it's transmission because the motor was still going and fine.”

Gase's disappointment was etched in his face. He ran his hands through his hair in quiet dejection and had a short debrief with his crew chief after the team put the car on jack stands and determined their day was done.

He felt great about how they were running compared to other races at Iowa in the past, and in gauging who he was racing against, knew it was going to be one of their best efforts at his home track on the NASCAR Xfinity Series tour. Additionally, any extra money the sponsorship brought in won't really be saved, even with the extra tires unused.

'It's so disappointing. We definitely had the best car we've ever had here,” Gase said. 'We were running right up there with a group of guys that have twice our budget for the entire year. It just sucks. But we'll move on.

'It doesn't really save us any money - maybe a couple hundred extra dollars. Next time we go to a track with this compound, we'll only be able to use them in practice.”

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