By Jerry Jordan, Editor
HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Ryan Blaney has spent two years being haunted by the Homestead finish he gave away to Tyler Reddick. On Sunday night he took it back.
Blaney passed Reddick on Lap 266 of 267 to win the NASCAR Cup Series season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway by 0.314 seconds, his fourth victory of the season and the 21st of his career. In 2024, Reddick passed Blaney on the outside on the last lap to win at Homestead. This time Blaney was the pursuer and he said the lesson from that night stayed with him.
“Yeah, I tell you, last two years I’ve had nightmares about that finish. It’s nice to get a little redemption from that,” Blaney said. “I think we’re even now. That makes me feel a little bit better than I did a couple years ago. Every time I come here, that race haunts me. I kind of gave that one away. I didn’t do a very good job at the end of that race. Learned from it. Was able to apply some stuff we learned a couple years ago in that situation to tonight.”
Unlike Kyle Larson, who all but had the NASCAR Championship on lock before the green flag, Blaney was facing strong headwinds to win the season finale. He started ninth and then had a problem on pit road at the end of the first stage. That put the No. 12 Team Penske Ford behind a ton of cars but Blaney’s car was fast enough to overcome the mistake.
“It’s early enough. It was end of the first stage,” Blaney said. “Knew we had time. Knew it was going to be difficult but our car was really fast. Sometimes things might hurt initially, they might help you down the road.”
A late caution for Daniel Suarez’s spin set up the final sprint. Blaney restarted fourth, passed Christopher Bell on Lap 263, William Byron a lap later and then ran Reddick down. Reddick made several moves to protect his position but Blaney eventually got a run and went around him on the top.
“He protected so much, I was able to kind of pop back to the right, get into three hard,” Blaney said. “Smart enough not to make that same mistake twice. It was definitely a hell of a way to end it.”
Reddick, Byron, Bell and Bubba Wallace rounded out the top five.
The victory made it two straight years Blaney has won the season finale on the day another driver took the championship and it lifted him to fourth in the final standings, a jump of three spots.
“Huge, massive,” Blaney said of the jump in the final points standings. “That was a tall order, fourth, coming into this weekend. I felt like we could maybe get to fifth. But with the 19 having problems, that opened that door up if we had a monster day. If you’re not running for a championship, you want to win the last race. It’s nice to celebrate with those guys one last time.”
He closed by tipping his cap to the 2026 Cup Series Champion.
“Congratulations to Kyle Larson, Mr. Hendrick, Cliff Daniels, championship number three, two in a row. Those guys are awesome,” Blaney said. “Hopefully we can race with them next year.”