Kevin Harvick expresses concern for Ford, Ryan Blaney after engine explosions

Ryan Blaney has had a string of bad luck in recent weeks. Bad motors, too.

On Sunday at Homestead, Blaney’s race was ended when his motor blew up with him running in third place. Smoke billowing out of both sides of the car, he was forced to head to pit road where he was sidelined for the rest of the race.

He had led 124 laps in the race. And few drivers had a better car.

“Look, Blaney’s in that same scenario. Fastest car the last couple weeks, been in position to just dominate races,” Kevin Harvick said on the Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast. “He was dominating this race and had some trouble on pit road, got run into, had some things get banged up and then the engine blew up. It grenaded. And that’s the second one.

“So when you have those two engine failures in a few weeks, we talked about the Toyotas last year and what was the issue with the engines. And ultimately they got it fixed eventually, but they blew up a lot of motors.”

Until Ryan Blaney gets a few races under his belt without motor issues it will linger as a concern. Is he at risk of losing another race because of an equipment failure?

“Having these engines close together like that means that they’re not probably on the same rotation of the same engine batch,” Harvick explained. “Definitely probably a different engine. Well the engine at Phoenix is gone because it blew up too.”

In other words, the problem might be a little more widespread than expected. Possibly. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on when there is a mechanical failure.

Teams will be working around the clock trying to identify the issue and correct it. Ryan Blaney’s too good a driver to have chances to win ruined like that.

“So just have to keep our eye on it,” Harvick said. “I don’t know if this is a trend, a coincidence or what that is, but Ryan Blaney has had two opportunities with, especially at Homestead, a car that was absolutely dominant to go and win the race and it’s gone. But that’s kind of been the story, outside of Josh Berry, of the Fords this year.

“They’ve had cars that are good enough to be in contention, to take advantage of being in position to win, and haven’t.”