On a two-tire strategy call from crew chief Jonathon Hassler with 88 laps to go, the No. 12 team had their eyes on the prize.
The next restart on the front row in position to strike, Ryan Blaney took the lead from Josh Berry and never looked back, cementing a career night, holding on to win at the inaugural Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway.
“What a cool way to win here, overall appreciate the #12 boys. Our car was really fast all night,” Blaney said after the race.
“The two tires was a good call, I started to struggle there, but had enough to hang on at the end.”
The defending series champion flexed his muscle by leading a career-high 201 laps, and notching his 11th career win, his first since Martinsville last fall.
Blaney collected his second short track win and locked himself into the playoffs as the tenth driver to do so this season.
Sunday night marked the Cup Series’ inaugural event at the Iowa Speedway. The Newton, Iowa short track had previously hosted the lower tier Xfinity and Truck Series each with their last races coming in 2019, and perennially IndyCar Series races.
In 2024, it was the Cup Series turn which delivered a corn-filled basket of surprises.
On lap 131, Kyle Larson spun off the front bumper of Daniel Suarez. Larson had been the car to beat all weekend— qualifying on pole, finishing second and first in the two stages, and leading 81 laps.
However, a three-wide battle between him, Suarez, and Brad Keselowski turned into a disaster, giving the Elk Grove, Calif. native a bent right front toe link and a brake liner issue, sending him to the garage and out of contention, finishing 34th, 32 laps down.
“I could’ve just not gone to the middle, been more patient knowing how fast my car was and knowing who I was around,” said Larson, who fell to second in the regular season points, eight points behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott.
“I wanted to get as many cars as I could with a run, and it came to bite me.”
Despite this caution being the last, the door for some underdog runs was opened. Three-time Iowa Xfinity winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr, finished fifth, rookie Josh Berry came home seventh, Todd Gilliland wound up 12th, Justin Haley ended the night in 13th and Spire Motorsports rookie Carson Hocevar placed 14th.
Those finishes were bits of the unique inaugural Iowa weekend for the Cup Series. Drivers navigated a surface with a mix of new and old, which proved to be a daunting task. All four corners’s preferred lanes were repaved in May, but the front and back stretches of the track still had the original 2006 surface.
Drivers were faced with having to manage tires, executing pit road strategy, aggressive racing on restarts, passing, and multiple passing grooves. This was all in wake of criticism for NASCAR’s choice to do a partial repave of the track, people believed it would be a setback for the racing product.
However, during tire cycles, speeds dipped by two seconds on older tires.
“They definitely need to repave the rest of the corners at least, if they don’t want to do the straightaways that fine but they need to do the entire corners,” said fourth-place finisher Christopher Bell.
“I’m hopeful that they do it tomorrow or next week, so we have a full year to sit on it before we come back. The longer that it sits, the better it will get, if we had a Cup race on the old Iowa [surface] it would’ve been a barnburner.”
Iowa made a statement. Fan atmosphere and racing product have cemented Iowa as a mainstay on the Cup schedule for 2025 and beyond.
Additionally, tonight proved that despite the track being inactive in NASCAR for five years, having experience will always serve well. With Blaney’s win, he completed the trifecta, being the first driver to win in all national series at Iowa.
NASCAR will head to the greater New England territory of Loudon’s New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Coverage of the USA Today 301 at New Hampshire begin at 2:30 p.m. ET on USA Network.
The Slow Restart 