NASCAR insiders sound off on Kyle Larson dumping Ryan Blaney at Gateway, exchange on pit road

There wasn’t a lot of drama in the Gateway race. However, Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney gave NASCAR fans a little bit. Larson spun Blaney out halfway through the race and afterwards, the two drivers were explaining their respective sides of the situation.

Ryan Blaney knew he just got spun out and dumped. Kyle Larson said it was an accident. Does it matter much how it was done if the end result is the same?

Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic talked about the incident both on the track and the confrontation on pit road. Things didn’t get too heated, but Blaney was largely unsatisfied with the whole thing.

“Larson made a mistake, I mean, Kyle said as much, Bianchi said on The Teardown. “He screwed up, drifted up high. And if you’re Blaney, you feel like, do you got a bullseye on your back? How many times this year, or how many times throughout the last couple years, it feels like Blaney gets taken out by somebody [not] from his own doing? And he’s not somebody who makes a lot of mistakes, or if he makes mistakes, they really aren’t costly to other people.

“I don’t want to put words in his mouth, and he was pretty good about it afterwards, but man, if I was him, I would just be burning up. ‘What the Hell? Why does it that people take advantage of me, it seems like, over and over again?’ And it’s not in his personality or anything, but you almost think he’s almost too nice in a way. People can’t, you gotta send a message, of like, you gotta stop taking advantage of me. And just, it happens over and over with him.”

Ryan Blaney pulled Kyle Larson during media scrum

Bianchi’s co-host was largely in agreement. He also gave a first-person perspective of how Ryan Blaney pulled Kyle Larson to the side for their chat.

“That’s the thing, he said, afterwards, he told us on pit road that if it had been a different result and he wasn’t able to recover to fourth place, then the conversation would have been a lot different after the race,” Gluck said. “But as it was, Larson was talking to the reporters, and Blaney came over and stood for, I don’t know, two, three minutes and waited there. Finally, as we were still asking questions, he said, ‘Alright, I can’t wait anymore,’ and he pulled Larson out.”

Ryan Blaney had earned that position over Kyle Larson. While the Hendrick driver has a right to race for a spot, he has to be more careful. If Blaney goes into the wall and drops to 30-something place, that’s a playoff ender. At least, potentially.

Blaney said he will remember the incident for the future. So, keep an eye on how the 12 races the 5 moving forward these NASCAR Playoffs.