July 26, 2019 | By Lee Spencer

Blaney breaks away from the Playoff bubble

Ryan Blaney hopes the bad luck is behind him.

Between the wrecks, mechanical issues and a couple of penalties on pit road, the first half of Blaney’s season did not produce the consistency the No. 12 Team Penske crew had expected.

But Blaney expressed confidence that the team is moving in the right direction approaching Sunday's Gander RV 400 at Pocono Raceway, the site of his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup win in 2017.

“I think Pocono will be great for us,” said Blaney, who finished 12th at the 2.5-mile track in June. “I thought we were really fast there. We just didn’t qualify good, and restarts never went our way, but I think we passed the most cars there all day.  We just never got up there to show what speed we had, so I’m looking forward to Pocono.

“Hopefully, we can go back and actually show what speed we have, because I thought we were contenders if we could have got up there.”

Blaney is coming off of a career-best fourth-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last weekend. He qualified fifth and gained stage points in the first segment. Although Blaney has experienced moments where he loses the handling on his No. 12 Ford during the race and struggles to get his car dialed back in, that wasn’t the case last Sunday.

“There was kind of a middle point in the race where I didn’t think we were great, but we were able to drive back up through there,” Blaney said. “Overall, not a bad day. Obviously, you want to be fighting for a win, but I thought we did a good job of staying on top of the race track, which is something to be proud of.”

With six races remaining in the regular season, Blaney, is currently 11th in the Cup standings—the top driver outside of the top 10 in points without a win. His veteran Penske teammates, points leader Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski, sit comfortably in the top five with five wins between them. Besides the victories, the glaring difference between Blaney and his teammates are the laps led. Logano has led 609 laps. Keselowski, who has three wins this season and 790 laps at the point, is second only to Kyle Busch in laps led. Blaney has led 362.

Clearly, his Ford Mustang is fast. It’s just a matter of capitalizing on opportunities. But he’s not concerned about qualifying for the post-season.

“I think we’ll be fine if we just don’t have any problems,” Blaney said. “We had a little stretch there of difficult races and bad finishes that hasn’t really let us separate from that line or get a win. I don’t really see that happening, but you’re never safe unless you’ve won a race. 

“I think we’ll be fine if we don’t have any catastrophic problems – a month in a row where you finish dead last, get no stage points, but you never know.  Someone could win just like that right out of the top 16 or right below you and move you back a row.  That’s just kind of how this deal is and what makes it exciting. I think we can solve all that by winning a race here soon.”

Blaney agrees with his fellow drivers that the level of aggression has peaked at the Cup level with the current competition package. The 25-year-old driver believes it’s just a product of the times.

“Yeah, it feels like restarts are the craziest they’ve been ever since I’ve been in the Cup Series, just because the cars are so draggy,” Blaney said. “That’s the easiest spot to kind of make a move, and you can just drive these cars so hard, it’s just about driving harder than someone else a lot of the time. Your right-foot commitment is way higher, I feel like. 

“As far as the aggressive level, I think people see that because you’re seeing a lot more blocking and cutting off runs now, just because you have to do it. You have to do that, and I’ve thrown big blocks this year on mile-and-a-half race tracks. That’s just how it is, and you kind of expect it.”

The current level of competition, combined with drivers feeling the pressure of trying to qualify for the Playoffs, has ramped up the level of action significantly over the last two years—and that’s not a bad thing for spectators.

“I honestly think this year’s racing has been pretty decent,” Blaney said. “I think we’ve seen some good races. We’ve seen some bad ones, and that’s just how it is. Not every race is gonna be an amazing race. That’s not how it is. There are some races that are going to be ‘boring,' but that’s with any package – you’re going to have that. You’re not going to have four-wide everywhere, but I think the racing this year has been good.

“But even last year, you’re racing every lap like it’s for your job. You have to stay relevant in this deal. You can’t just be relaxed and run around there.  There is always someone younger than you, and you hope not more hungry than you, but wanting to come up through the ranks and take your job. There are all these people that aren’t in your ride that probably want your job, so you have to prove yourself week-in and week-out.”