2024 NASCAR Cup Series Race Seventeen Iowa

Cars in field: 36
Pole: Kyle Larson (5)
Outside Pole: Ryan Blaney (12)
Stages: 70-140-140
Weather: Sunny, 88°F, Feels like 90°, Wind SSW 15 mph, Wind Gusts 22 mph

Kyle Larson (5) and Ryan Blaney (12) race door-to-door for several laps battling for the lead. Blaney eventually gets the top spot.

Caution on lap 3 of 350 for a spin by Corey LaJoie (7). The 77 of Carson Hocevar got into the 71 of Zane Smith who tagged the 7 of Corey LaJoie sending him around and touching the outside wall. The three drivers are all teammates.

The MRN crew a highly excited in their call of the event. While the television broadcast – NBC today – showed the front of the field during that segment, I didn’t see anything quite as exciting as what they were calling. It is the first Cup race at the track so maybe that’s why they’re going a bit nutso.

Restarting on lap 9 of 350 with Ryan Blaney (12) and Kyle Larson (5) on the front row. Larson gets the lead.

Caution on lap 51 of 350 for a flat tire and visit to the wall by AJ Allmendinger (16).

Restarting on lap 58 of 350 with Daniel Suarez (99) and Brad ‘It’ Keselowski (6) on the front row followed by William ‘WilliB’ Byron (24), Kyle Larson (5), Corey LaJoie (7) and Ryan Blaney (12). Suarez and It stayed out on the pit cycle.

Kyle Larson (5) takes the lead in turn three.

Ryan Blaney (12) takes over the lead on lap 60 of 350.

On lap 62 of 350 Ty Gibbs (54) slammed the outside wall and kept going. NBC changed the camera-shot just as he hit and showed various cars driving in circles – missing the live action of the wall hit – in a two panel split-screen. Now they have a three-panel split-screen shot. Since the cars are so small and far away in each panel it’s virtually impossible to determine which cars are in the shots and the relevance of their position and the relevance of the shot. Overall the car numbers aren’t visible, or are too small to read due to the camera angle – either too far away from the action and/or at the wrong angle to show the car numbers. So basically there are three different panels of random cars driving in circles without any context. The crappy coverage is already underway.

Ryan Blaney (12) wins stage one.

Restart on lap 7 of 350 with Blaney and Larson up front. Kyle Larson takes the early lead. Blaney continues to battle for the lead.

John Hunter ‘JHN’ Nemechek (42) turns Noah Gragson, who slides then saves the car, bringing out the caution on lap 80 of 350.

Kyle Larson (5) pits on lap 83 of 350. No one else pits.

Restarting on lap 86 of 350 with Ryan Blaney (12) and WilliB (24) on the front row.

MRN’s Steve Post reports that Kyle Larson reported a vibration, so they brought him down and changed four tires. They reportedly don’t see anything wrong with the tires.

Blaney gets the early lead.

Joey Logano (22) gets second from William ‘WilliB’ Byron (24).

Michael McDowell (34) loses a right front tire, but makes it to pit road without bringing out the caution on lap 113 of 350.

Zane Smith (71) has a flat right front on lap 130 of 350. He takes his car to pit road under green. The MRN turn reporters, Mike ‘Bagman’ Bagley and Chris Willner, hav been calling the flat tires as though they were a multi-car pile-ups. So far the cars have slowed and made their way to pit road.

Kyle ‘KyBu’ Busch (8) pits under green on lap 133 of 350. MRN reports it is a scheduled pit stop. NASCAR digital reports KyBu reported a vibration.

Ross Chastain (1) loses a right front on lap 167 of 350 while other cars perform green flag pit stops.

‘Desperate’ Denny Hamlin (11) gets into the left rear of Kyle Larson (5) who goes up the track catches the car and continues on.

Erik Jones (43) has lost a right front is is headed slowly for pit road on lap 172 of 350.

Caution on lap 181 of 350 for Daniel Hemric (31) visiting the wall, though he was able to continue on.

Restarting on lap 188 of 350 with Ricky ‘WreckySpinhouse’ Stenhouse Jr (47), William ‘WillyB’ Byron (24), Chase Elliot (9), Kyle Larson (5), Ryan Blaney (9), Josh Berry (4), and Darrell ‘Bubba’ Wallace (23) up front.

Larson (5) gets the early lead closely followed by Josh Berry (4).

On lap 192 of 350 track designer Rusty Wallace in the MRN booth said he dreamt the track would race like this. MRN’s Jeff Striegle said he could see the emotion in Rusty’s eyes, “Well deserved”.

Chase Elliott (9) is battling Josh Berry (4) for second position on lap 198 of 350.

Again the television broadcast is showing a useless three-panel split-screen shot on lap 137 of 350 – near the end of the stage. One panel has one car – Larson (5), the other has two cars – can’t read the car numbers – and the final panel has about four cars – also can’t read those numbers. Larson leads. I don’t know why they’re showing the cars in the other panels since I can’t really determine which cars are shown and where they are on the track. Boring television.

Larson wins stage two 1.762 seconds ahead of second place.

Daniel Suarez (99) doored Kyle Larson (5) who spun into ‘Desperate’ Denny Hamlin (11) and tagged the wall.

Kyle Larson (5) reportedly has a bent right toe-link.

MRN reports ‘Desperate’ Denny Hamlin (11) has a right bent tie-rod. His steering wheel is pointed at two o’clock and they’ve told him to to adjust his steering wheel while he’s in his pit under caution.

Restarting with Chris Buescher (17), Josh Berry (4), Daniel Suarez (99), Todd Gilliland (38), Brad ‘It’ Keselowski (6), Darrell ‘Bubba’ Wallace (23), Chase Elliott (9) and Ryan Blaney (12) up front on lap 227 of 350.

Berry takes the early lead. Chris Buescher takes the lead back. Berry reclaims the lead.

On lap 232 of 350 the black flag is displayed as Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin approach the flag stand according to MRN.

MRN reports Larson (5) has taken the car to the garage with no brakes and suspension damage on lap 232 of 350. Larson did meet minimum speed, so he’s still in the race. The crew is trying to repair the brake issue to get him back out on the track.

Caution on lap 259 of 350 for Chris Buescher (17) losing a right front and swiping the wall.

Restarting on lap 266 of 350 with Ryan Blaney (12), Joey Logano (22), Ricky Stenhouse Jr (47) and Josh Berry (4) leading the field to the green flag.

Ryan Blaney (12) gets the early lead over teammate Joey Logano (22).

Kyle ‘KyBu’ Busch (6) pits under green on lap 269 of 350. MRN’s Chris Willner reports Kyle said right front rub on the radio. He didn’t get back up to speed on pit out and said something has broken, he heads back to his pit stall. After a stop in his pitbox, Kyle heads to the garage.

Looks like Kyle Busch (6) is returning to the track from the garage area on lap 282 of 350. On lap 297 of 350 Kyle is in the garage, out of the car. He said when the left rear toe link or something in the left rear suspension was repaired and he went back out the power-steering hose blew off/snapped. He said he’s very frustrated.

Michael McDowell (34) pits, under green, on lap 327 of 350 with a flat right front.

With six laps to go tv has a split-screen of the on-track action and the grandstands. The people seemed to be sitting still, eventually a few people clapped and the shot began to zoom in, but they stopped clapping before the zoom made much progress. Useless shots.

Granted, so far, Blaney is safely ahead of second position, not much pressure. Now some people, a handful, are cheering so we are again stuck with a split-screen grandstand shot of those people. Ah, apparently those were Ryan Blaney’s family. NBCSports’ Marty Snider says there are 80 of them in the grandstands. Ryan says he’s from just down the road. He says he hates Gianna, his fiancee, isn’t there.

Ryan Blaney wins 0.718 ahead of second place.

Congratulations to Chase Elliot on a third place finish, to Ricky Stenhouse Jr on a fifth place finish, to Josh Berry on a seventh place finish, and to Alex Bowman on an eighth place finish.

The race started off okay, then got better. They raced toward the ends of stages one and two. They logged laps for a while through most of stage two. The cautions allowed for more racing than expected in stage three, though the race was effectively done when they strung out after the final restart. Blaney managed the lap traffic well keeping the second-place car a consistent distance behind him to easily complete the victory. Blaney led 201 of 350 laps. Josh Berry led 32 laps. Kyle Larson led 80 laps.

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Next Race: New Hampshire

GO Hendrick 48 & 9!!!!