Blaney leads most laps for Wood Bros. since 1981

By Dominic Aragon

April 9, 2017

FORT WORTH, Texas—He didn’t win, but Ryan Blaney led the most laps Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, the most laps a Wood Brothers Racing entry has led in one race in NASCAR’s premiere series in over three-and-a-half decades.

The 23-year-old driver led four times in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 for a total of 148 laps, winning the first two stages of the race.

“If you would have asked me if we would have been so good at the first two stages yesterday, I wouldn't have thought so, and that definitely means a lot,” Blaney said. “It teaches us a lot what we need to do as far as changes from practice to race. It definitely helped being up front, as well.”

Prior to Sunday, Blaney had led a combined 33 laps in his first 60 starts in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series competition.

For the Wood Brothers, prior to Sunday, the team had led its prior 148 laps over the course of 367 races, dating back to July of 2002.

The 148 laps led was the most by a WBR driver since Neil Bonnett led 200 laps en route to victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1981.

IMAGES

Jeremy Thompson/The Racing Experts

SOURCES

Racing-Reference.info

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