Ryan Blaney won Sunday’s (Aug. 23) Dollar Tree 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, holding off Bubba Wallace and Josh Berry on two tires in the closing laps to claim his second straight win at the Magic Mile and his third of 2026.
“We did two at the end to try to hopefully get the lead, and we did,” Blaney said on the USA Network telecast. “It was a long, long run to the end, longest run we had. Just tried to manage my stuff. Knew the four-tire guys would pressure me eventually. Bubba came on hard there. Just tried to manage the lap traffic and manage the tire, not make a mistake.
“What a cool race. Fun day starting in the rain. Ended up being a beautiful day. Everybody came out, thanks for sticking with it.”
Blaney cleared Chase Briscoe for the lead with 61 laps to go and drove away, only allowing Wallace to get close while the two were embroiled in lapped traffic. Wallace did get within 0.5 seconds of Blaney but slipped in turn 3 with five laps to go and never got that close again.
“The worst driving car we had this year and I finished second,” Wallace said. “Just been saying it all week long, I think I finally know, throw out the field I’m chasing, which is hard to go as a race car driver, searching for the right front, it’s not really ever there. We fought, man. Had a nice day just by myself, regrouping. Got the head right. I knew I had to fight all day. That’s what it takes. Where it starts is with this [No.] 23 team. Man, they pushed me to be the absolute best. I fail them a lot, but they stick behind me. It’s super cool.”
Berry also closed in quickly on both Blaney and Wallace in the final laps, having charged back to the top five after a slow pit stop. He just ran out of time to battle for the win and finished third.
“Fought hard to get back through there, man,” Berry said. “That was everything I had. Everything I could do today. It was pretty good, I’ll say that, too. It was a lot of fun. Just great job by these guys. The car was really solid. Managed the rain, drying track. [With] all the different conditions we had, to stay up front like we did was a good day.”
Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson rounded out the top five. Ty Gibbs was sixth, followed by Denny Hamlin and polesitter Tyler Reddick. Ryan Preece and Noah Gragson rounded out the top-10 finishers.
Hamlin locked up the No. 1 Chase seed after taking a 77-point lead over Blaney heading into Daytona.
Ross Chastain finished 36th after drivetrain issues, while Riley Herbst and Connor Zilisch finished 34th and 35th, respectively, after a crash. Transmission problems relegated Erik Jones to a 33rd-place result.
The race started with the field on wet-weather tires and on a damp track. That immediately bit polesitter Reddick, who spun on lap 1.
The race then went green until NASCAR threw a competition yellow at lap 41.
Chastain went behind the wall under the caution after his No. 1 was seen smoking heavily. The issue was a drivetrain problem, and Chastain was ruled out of the race.
Larson went on to win stage one.
Preece took the lead after staying out on the ensuing restart. On lap 83, Carson Hocevar spun down the frontstretch after contact with Zilisch, while Joey Logano and Austin Dillon also went around as the field tried to slow down.
Berry took the lead from Preece on the ensuing restart, with Blaney driving to second and briefly challenging Berry for the lead before fading slightly.
Blaney took the top spot from Berry following the first round of green flag pit stops and went on to win stage two, but a slow pit stop at the end of the stage dropped him out of the top 10 and gave Wallace the lead.
The caution waved again on lap 203 for Hocevar, who spun in turn 3. Wallace then took the lead away from Berry on the ensuing restart.
Herbst and Zilisch crashed with 77 laps remaining to bring out another caution.
Blaney took the lead after taking only two tires on pit road, but the caution came out immediately with 69 laps to go after William Byron lost a left-rear tire and hit the wall in turn 3. That was the final caution of the day, and Blaney navigated lapped traffic in the closing laps to seal his 20th career Cup win.
The regular season comes to a close at Daytona International Speedway with the Coke Zero Sugar 400 on Saturday, Aug. 29, at 7:30 p.m. ET. TV coverage will be provided by NBC.
A member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Samuel also covers NASCAR for Yardbarker, Field Level Media, and Heavy Sports. He will attend the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2025.