Ryan Blaney won his second race of the 2025 season in the regular season finale, stopping Ford's winless drought after 12 races. With eight laps to go, a restart following a caution for Blaney's Team Penske's teammate, Joey Logano, being spun out from the lead, placed a handful of winless racers in 2025 at the front of the field. Peppered in between were Hendrick drivers Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott. The winless drivers, including Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece, Justin Haley, and Erik Jones, were battling for the last spot in the playoffs. Elliott and Larson were battling to pad their win tallies and keep their teammate, Alex Bowman, in the final spot.
Jones and Haley started the final sprint on the front row, with Larson behind Jones and Buescher behind Haley. Coming to five to go, Larson got Jones extremely loose, pitching him out of the top drafting line and up towards the wall, Jones saved his car but fell out of contention for the win.
With two laps to go, Larson was behind Preece and moved to the high side, taking Elliott and a run of cars with him, abandoning Preece in the middle. Larson's line fell back to the middle racing groove and the top opened again, this time the No. 41 of Cole Custer, also winless, pushed through with Blaney behind. Custer led the coming to the white. While Custer was trying to defend Buescher on the low line, Blaney kept momentum in the middle of the four-wide finish with Haley and Suaréz to his right, and the Nashville winner took his second victory of the season.
"What a wild last couple of laps, I was with Cole," Blaney said of his Ford teammate. "I asked him on the restart, if you're going to the top, I'm going with you. The opportunity came."
With a repeat winner, Bowman, who was out of the race after a 12-car crash on lap 31, found himself as the last man in to the 16-driver playoffs. Bowman and 23XI's Tyler Reddick were the only two drivers to make the playoffs with a win.
At the Checkers, Blaney was followed by four drivers that would've locked in with a win: Trackhouse's Daniel Suarez, Spire's Haley, Haas Factory's Custer, and Legacy MC's Jones. Larson narrowly edged Buescher for sixth.
"It was not the traditional way we like to run; we like to lead laps, but we got there when it mattered."
Blaney actually led 27 laps with most of them coming in the first stage before a long fuel stop pushed them down the grid, tying his teammate Logano for most laps led in the race.
With his win, Blaney moves to second in the points ahead of the start of the 10-week NASCAR Playoffs kicking off at Darlington next week.
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