Ryan Blaney Earns Ford Their Fifth Straight NASCAR Cup Win at Atlanta Motor Speedway

This past weekend, Ford Performance and NASCAR Cup Series driver Ryan Blaney roared past the finish line behind the wheel of his number 12 Team Penske Ford Mustang, earning the Ford Motor Company its fifth consecutive win at Atlanta Motor Speedway’s Folds of Honor QuickTrip 500.

Blaney’s winning pass came with only eight laps left in a race that was dominated by Kyle Larson and his number 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy Camaro. Prior to Blaney’s bold move, Larson had led 269 of the race’s 325 laps.

“Gosh, we had a great long run car all day...there were a couple long runs at the end that kind of let us get there,” Blaney said. “[Larson] got slowed up behind some lap traffic, but I’m really proud of this whole BodyArmor, Menards No. 12 group.  We’ve been good this year and had some bad breaks and it’s nice to close out a race like that. That was awesome,” he added.

Sunday’s win is the first for Ryan Blaney this year and the first Atlanta win of his career, but for Ford, Blaney’s victory marked the fifth victory in a row at Georgia’s 1.54 mile track. 

For the fourth time in his career, Kyle Larson was forced to deal with the disappointment of losing a race after winning its first two stages.

“I think (Blaney) just got a lot better that last stage, and that changed up my flow of the race a little bit,” said Larson, who won each of the first two stages by more than six seconds. “I could get out to such big leads, and I could take care of my stuff and run the bottom where it was maybe slower, but I couldn’t take care of my tires.”

“[Blaney] was fast there (in the final run), and I just wanted to maintain that gap that I had, so I had to run in the faster part of the race track and just used my stuff up. He was a lot better than me there late in the run. Our (No. 5) Hendrick Cars Chevy was stupid-fast there for a long time. I don’t know if we got that much worse, or if he got way better,” Larson joked.

Ryan Blaney is one of the hottest young drivers on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit today, and it’s bold performances like these that show exactly how well the Ford Performance team works to compete in every race.

“The 5 was crazy fast there the whole race and then we started closing in,” said Blaney.  “Our car got a lot better there. I’m happy there were a couple long runs at the end. That’s where our strong suit was and we capitalized on it.”