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Ryan Blaney collected in crash while leading at Bristol

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Ryan Blaney led 99 of the first 118 laps, but got knocked out in a mulit-car crash at Bristol Motor Speedway.

BRISTOL, Tenn. - Ryan Blaney led 100 of the first 117 laps Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway but got no further after he was eliminated in a multi-car crash while lapping traffic. Blaney finished 35th.

Chris Buescher made a move on the outside and was hit by Trevor Bayne as Bayne came up the track. The contact sent Bayne into Harrison Rhodes’ car, which shot up the track and slammed into Blaney’s car as Blaney tried to avoid the crash by running near the wall in Turns 3 and 4.

“I didn’t see much to be honest with you,” Blaney told Fox.“By the time I could see anything, they were already turned right and there was nowhere to go. Seeing the replay, I don’t know, people not cleared, clearing themselves and then wrecking and take the leader out, so that’s unfortunate. Our car was pretty good today. We just kind of got held up there and we might not have been as strong at the end of that run, but I thought we could have at least held on for that stage and never got the chance. The positives you look at is that we had a good car and that’s something to hold your head high about.”

This marks the first time Blaney has failed to finish a Cup race this season. He had not finished worse than 16th this season until this race.

NASCAR stopped the race for 6 minutes, 29 seconds to clean the track after the incident.

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