Blaney had no warning before his second engine failure of the year

Ryan Blaney was a dominant force throughout the NASCAR Cup race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, leading most race laps — 124 of a possible 267 — and winning the opening stage.

The Team Penske driver was cruising in third place during the final stage of the race, just behind Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace as they battled for the race lead. But suddenly, a massive plume of white smoke billowed out the back of his No. 12 Ford Mustang, signalling a catastrophic engine failure.

Blaney's race was over just 60 laps shy of the finish, placing 36th of the original 37 starters.

Ryan Blaney, Team Penske Ford

“I didn’t have any warning," said Blaney afterwards. "It just laid over when I got back to wide-open down the front, and that was all she wrote. It just stinks. We had a really fast Ford Mustang. We led a lot of laps. We lost a little bit of track position there with some stuff on pit road, but got back to third and it was a great race between me and Bubba and Larson. I’m sure Denny [Hamlin] was gonna get back into it.

"It was gonna be a heck of a battle the last 60 laps or so, but it just didn’t really work out for us. We’ll continue to keep fighting. I appreciate the 12 guys for just giving me a hot rod. It was an incredibly, incredibly fast race car today. We’ll keep our heads up. It’s just one of those things where it’s not really going our way right now, but the good news is we’re bringing fast cars, and that’s all you can ask for. We’ll keep on moving.”

Heavy smoke seen after Ryan Blaney, Team Penske Ford engine blow

Photo by: Chris Graythen - Getty Images

Strangely, this isn't Blaney's first engine blowup this year -- a failure that has become increasingly rare in modern NASCAR. Two weeks ago at Phoenix, a similar engine issue ended his day. A crash at Las Vegas last weekend means that Blaney now has a stretch of three consecutive DNFs after just six races.