Think these guys don’t hear the outside noise?Tell that to Ryan Blaney, who ended his winless streak at 59 on Monday.Maybe his victory was fitting. Waiting out a day and a half of rain to run the longest event on the schedule, the Coca-Cola 600, was likely no big deal for Blaney, who’d been waiting since a victory at Daytona on August 28, 2021.“I might shed a tear,” Blaney choked just before he did. “You start to get to feel like you can’t win anymore when you don’t win in a while. It kind of gets hard. So, just super thankful for the (No.) 12 guys for believing in me.”But if ever there was a fluky streak, it was Blaney’s. He was the only driver to get into the playoffs last year on points and finished tied for third in top-fives with 12. Monday marked his eighth top-10 in 14 races this year and his fifth in the last six events.NASCAR HALFWAY: Will Ross Chastain get in via win? Can Harvick hold on? Can Chase Elliott charge back?SPEED FREAKS: Is Ryan Blaney ready to roll; are Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin OK?NASCAR POLL: Chase Elliott wrecked Denny Hamlin, but should he be suspended? Bubba Wallace was! Vote!Does the victory mean anything for Blaney long term? Time will tell. Of note, the last time he won a race, he won two in a row, winning at Michigan the week before heading to Daytona in 2021.The future can wait but Blaney’s wait is over.Let’s go through the gears.First gear: Denny Hamlin accuses Chase Elliott of ‘tantrum’, calls for suspensionBoy is NASCAR in a Vlasic-sized pickle.Could it really suspend its biggest star?In the interest of fairness, it probably should. After all, the replay of Chase Elliott’s car turning left, hooking Denny Hamlin right rear … right into the fence … and right after the two made contact with Elliott going into the wall, is pretty damning. Especially considering the precedent set by Bubba Wallace’s one-race suspension in October for crashing Kyle Larson at Las Vegas in a similar looking and violent crash.But there is wiggle room here. One, and maybe most importantly, Elliott denied intent, claiming that contact with the wall caused him to lose control of his car. And, upon further review, Elliott was contacted from behind by Brad Keselowski, though it seemed to come after his car had already started turning.This is another “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” for NASCAR, to be sure.But Hamlin is among many who have their minds made up.“It’s a tantrum and he shouldn’t be racing next week,” Hamlin said. “Right-rear hooks are absolutely unacceptable. I don’t care. It’s the same thing Bubba Wallace did with Kyle Larson. The exact same. He shouldn’t be racing.”Second gear: Bubba Wallace gives Aric Almirola the birdThe drama between Elliott and Hamlin made an altercation from earlier in the same stage seem like ancient history.A video released on Twitter showed Aric Almirola and Wallace coming together for a chat during a rain delay early in Stage 2. After Wallace leaned in and began to walk away, Almirola shoved him with the two coming back together while being separated by security. The conversation continued but no further contact was made.The disagreement likely stemmed from some minor contact between the two earlier in the race.”Early in the race I felt like I was giving Bubba a lot of room when we were racing each other and when he got by me, he shot me the bird,” Almirola explained. “So, I just went to go ask him why he shot me the bird and he started mouthing off and cussing at me and I told him I wasn’t going to have that. Disappointing. That’s him, I know that.”Third gear: A not-so-long-lasting LegacyA rough season reached cruel and unusual levels on Monday for Legacy Motor Club.All three of the organization’s entries went to the garage at almost the exact same time, with Erik Jones and Noah Gragson unfathomably both hitting debris and damaging radiators on the same lap.And things didn’t get any better after repairs, as Gragson and Jimmie Johnson hit each other, causing a crash and bringing out a caution. Combined, the three finished 32nd (Jones), 36th (Gragson) and 37th (Johnson) a total of 627 laps down.Fourth gear: A second go round at GatewayOne race is hardly long enough to have too much of an idea of what to expect at Gateway next week.Joey Logano won last year’s inaugural event at the 1¼-mile oval that’s shaped like Darlington and banked like Martinsville. Ford and Toyota combined to take the top six spots with Erik Jones’ four laps being the only circuits led by a Chevrolet.
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