Ryan Blaney’s sixth-place finish at Sonoma Raceway looked like a solid, quiet day on paper. The Team Penske driver spent much of the afternoon racing at the front and came away with another excellent finish. However, the struggle going on inside the cockpit was not visible to the fans. As the laps came to an end, Blaney had to cope with a rapidly escalating equipment malfunction and a physical hardship that almost caused him and Ryan Preece to be involved in a serious collision.

Ryan Blaney reveals how a cooling system failure nearly triggered disaster

“I was trying to outbrake Preece one time. So I was like late on the brakes and hard on them. And it cramped as I was trying to outbrake them. And I thought I was taking both of us out. I was like, oh, no. Somehow it was fine.”

For Ryan Blaney, the terrifying incident was the result of an issue that had been developing for almost the whole race. His No. 12 Team Penske Ford’s cooling shirt system failed right after Stage 1. During lengthy races (particularly on physically taxing road courses like Sonoma), the system that circulates cold water through tubing in the driver’s suit is essential.

Ryan Blaney first attempted a number of reset techniques from within the vehicle. However, nothing was effective. During a green-flag pit stop in Stage 2, the Team Penske crew went to a backup plan. They handed Blaney an emergency CO2-powered ejector tool. The goal was to remove the boiling water that had been trapped inside the cooling system and prevent the suit from effectively becoming a portable heater.

Sadly, the idea fell apart almost instantly. Ryan Blaney had nowhere to put the tool because the halt happened under the green flag. So, he shoved it into a small netted bag on his door. A few laps later, he reached for it, but the tool was gone. It had fallen out and vanished somewhere under the seat.

The water trapped in the system was becoming hotter without the ejector tool. Thus, a cooling shirt malfunction turned into a full-fledged physical struggle very quickly. Sonoma’s long green-flag runs made the issue worse.

Blaney usually uses a bottle attached to a drinking tube to stay hydrated, but he found it difficult to replenish the fluids he was losing due to his frequent racing and lack of downtime. Overheating followed the onset of dehydration, and finally, his left leg started to experience cramping. It could not have come at a worse time.

Entering Turn 11, one of Sonoma’s worst braking zones, with around 20 laps left, the cramps started hitting. A few laps were manageable. Some weren’t. The most dangerous moment came while battling Ryan Preece. Blaney was applying intense pressure while attempting a late-braking maneuver when his calf unexpectedly locked up on the brake pedal.

For a split second, Blaney thought he was going to wreck them both. Somehow, luckily, for both Ryans, disaster never arrived. Rather, Blaney was able to control the vehicle and finish in sixth position. In retrospect, he characterized the entire experience as a snowball effect, with one little problem building upon another until it became one of the most difficult physical tests he had encountered inside a race vehicle, all the while managing to avert the disastrous collision he had thought was imminent.