NSCS: Ryan Blaney and Paul Menard See Nights Foiled by Mechanical Issues

For Ryan Blaney and Paul Menard, neither want to reflect back on Texas Motor Speedway as both drivers would suffer mechanical issues on Saturday night.

Blaney would only get to complete 71 laps in the 500 mile race, going behind the wall due to an engine failure. It marks Blaney’s second engine failure in three starts this year having suffered the same fate in the Daytona 500.

“The bright side is I feel like we had a really good car,” crew chief Jeremy Bullins commented. “We made a couple changes there to make it a better long run car and after a couple of laps it looked like it really had speed and he was starting to move back up through the field. It just didn’t go our way. Obviously, something happened with the engine. I’m not sure exactly what because it’s hard to tell what happened first, so we just got to the point where we couldn’t keep going. It’s unfortunate. We’ve got a lot of power, so we won’t complain and we’ll go on and get ready for the next one.”

Paul Menard, meanwhile, got to complete more laps in the event and ran inside the top-10 throughout the first half of the event. However, around lap 225, Menard would take his No. 27 Chevrolet behind the wall with a broken water hose.

“The main line that goes in the motor just broke,” he commented. “It pushed a bunch of water out. No warning. The temperature gauge never moved. I was coming down the backstretch to pit and was slowing down and it broke. We popped the hood but couldn’t see anything. So, we went back out but then had no power.”