NASCAR Cup Iowa: Reigning champ Ryan Blaney earns first win of 2024

Sunday night’s race was the first for the series at the .875-mile short track, which has hosted Xfinity, Truck, ARCA and IndyCar series events in the past.

In a race where teams were wary of tire wear – and several paid the price by hitting the wall after flats Blaney and his No. 12 Penske Ford team mastered the strategy.

On the final caution of the race, Blaney was first off pit road and took just two new right-side tires. The race – which had eight cautions – ended with an 84-lap green-flag run and Blaney was never seriously challenged for the lead.

William Byron and Chase Elliott – who both took four tires on the final stop – tried to run Blaney down but to no avail. Blaney edged Byron by 0.716 seconds at the checkered flag to secure his first win of the year.

Blaney led four times for a race-high 201 laps on his way to the 11th win of his career and second for Penske in the last three races. It was Blaney’s teaMMAte, Austin Cindric, who won at Gateway two weeks ago when Blaney ran out of gas on the final lap while leading.

Watch: Ryan Blaney wins Cup Series’ first race at Iowa Speedway

Elliott ended up third, Christopher Bell – who started from the rear of the field in a backup car – was fourth and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. rounded out the top five.

Completing the top-10 were Joey Logano, Josh Berry, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suarez and Brad Keselowski.

Stage 1

Blaney passed Kyle Larson with nine laps remaining and held on to win Stage 1 by 0.260 seconds, his second stage win of the 2024 season. Suarez finished third, Byron fourth and Berry fifth.

A.J. Allmendinger was the first to experience a tire issue in the race, hitting the Turn 1 wall on lap 52 after the right-front went down on his No. 16 Chevrolet. He retired from the race after 54 laps.

Stage 2

Larson came from 33rd to first and held off Berry by 1.762 second to claim the Stage 2 win, his eighth of the 2024 season.

Larson pit under caution on lap 86 when he thought he had a tire going down, but it showed no problems. Elliott was third, Blaney fourth and Bubba Wallace rounded out the top five.

Just after a round of green flag pit stops began, Ross Chastain had a right-front tire go down and tagged the wall, but he was able to nurse his No. 1 Chevrolet to pit road. He rebounded to finish 19th in the stage.

Stage 3

Following the break between Stages 2 and 3, most of the lead lap cars elected to pit with Keselowski first off pit road thanks to a two-tire stop. Chris Buescher stayed out and inherited the lead as the race returned to green with 132 laps remaining.

On lap 220, Suarez got loose on the frontstretch and got into the left-rear of Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet, who shot up the track and into the side of Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota.

Larson was able to continue but had severe damage and was knocked out of contention of a race he looked likely to win. Buescher led the way on the restart on lap 228.

Buescher then hit the wall with a flat tire and sent everyone down pit road on lap 263 for new tires and fuel to make it to the end of the race.

Blaney was first off pit road with two new tires and led the way on the restart with 84 laps remaining. Berry was fourth, the first car on four new tires.

With 50 laps to go, Blaney remained in the lead with a nearly one-second advantage over Byron and Elliott third.

Byron remained less than a second behind Blaney with 25 laps remaining and Elliott closing to challenge for the runner-up position.