Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race Advance – Charlotte Motor Speedway
Friday, May 20, 2016
Ryan Blaney, driver of the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion, is hoping to qualify for his first NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race this weekend. In order to do that, he’ll have to either race his way in during tonight’s Sprint Showdown or via fan vote. He spoke about the opportunity earlier this afternoon.
RYAN BLANEY – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – HOW IS YOUR OUTLOOK FOR THIS WEEKEND? “Hopefully it clears up and the weather will participate with us. I’m excited. The All-Star Race has always been really cool to me. I come here every year. Even if my dad wasn’t running it, he’d always run the Showdown and it was just a cool event to come and watch, and a cool race under the lights here. As a kid I always wanted to be a part of it, so it’s something neat that we’re gonna attempt to do. Hopefully, we can get in whether it’s the segments or the fan votes, so that’s something I’m looking forward to. It’s gonna be just a fun race. I’ve never been part of a race like this, having no points and no holding back, just going for a big prize. It’s gonna be a lot of fun to race in and then race the other drivers in it as well.”
HAVE YOU STARTED TO LOOK AHEAD AT WHAT THE RACE STRATEGY MIGHT BE FOR THIS RACE? “We haven’t talked too much strategy for the All-Star Race yet. We’ve been mainly focused on doing the best we can in the Showdown to try to race our way in. We have figured some strategies that I’m sure some teams have, but whether it’s going out and trying to lead every segment and having to start 10th or 11th in the last little segment, or maybe someone else has a different strategy in being able to start on the front row for that last one, so it kind of depends. But, really, we’ve just been focused on trying to make it in there and then we can work that stuff out.”
DOES YOU GUT TELL YOU WHERE YOU MIGHT WANT TO BE AND WHAT STRATEGY MIGHT BE BEST? “I think with the new rules package it will be easier to pass going up through the field. Even though you have 13 laps, if you have 30 lap fresher tires than the people in front of you, you can make good ground. I think everyone’s goal is to want the best car and be able to lead every single segment and know your car is good enough to drive up through the field at the end. It sounds pretty tough coming from 11th all the way to the lead in 13 laps, but it’s been done before for sure, especially with people on different strategies, so it’s doable and that’s kind of where my gut is telling me to want to be at.”
DO ANY ALL-STAR RACES STAND OUT IN YOUR MEMORY? “One of the biggest ones, and the most exciting ones, I think it was Denny and Kyle were racing for the lead and one of them threw a block on the other or whatever happened over on two and Kurt Busch came from fourth to the lead off of four and ended up winning the race. I think he was driving the 2 car at the time, so that was definitely pretty exciting. I don’t remember what year that was, maybe 2010 or something, but, to me, growing up I was like, ‘Man, that was awesome.’ Good, hard racing. That just shows that people are going for it and going for one million dollars with people racing hard. I thought that was a really great race.”
DID YOU DO ANYTHING TO TRY TO GET PEOPLE TO VOTE YOU IN TO THE ALL-STAR RACE? “Not really. Honestly, it’s been pretty great. I get a notification every time someone votes for me on Twitter, and, honestly, I’m getting annoyed by it, which is a good thing. That means people are voting, which is good. I’m sick of getting on Twitter and it’s ‘so and so has voted for you.’ I hate seeing these, but it’s cool that people are voting. It’s shocked me, to be honest with you, to see how much people have been doing it and it’s going to be interesting to see how high up we are. We plan on winning one of the segments. We don’t really want to fall back on the fan vote. I want to go out and win a segment, but it’s been really neat, but I haven’t done anything campaigning-wise.”
DOES THE RELATIONSHIP WITH PENSKE HELP WHEN IT COMES TO ALL THESE RULE CHANGES? “Yeah. It definitely does help. We get a lot of information. The Penske organization has always been one of the best, I think, at being ahead of the game as far as rules changes and being prepared for it. That’s something that they work very hard on and we get that information too from the other two teams. That’s a great part about being kind of a satellite team to the Penske group. We get a lot of info from them and, hopefully, be ahead of the ball with these new rules changes.”
HOW HAVE YOU CHANGED AS A DRIVER RUNNING SO MANY RACES THIS YEAR. A YEAR AGO YOU HAD ONLY RUN FOUR TO THIS POINT? “It just helps. Every time you get in the race car, the more you can be in the race car, be at the track every single week and driving, I didn’t have that last year. I had 15 races on the Cup side and three of them got rained out, or something like that, so that side of it and being able to go to the race track every week and having that kind of consistent rhythm has definitely helped me, but not only me. Jeremy Bullins, my crew chief, and the whole team just working together. They get used to each other every single week, just like I get used to these race cars and tracks. That’s something that has really helped us, and I think the past few weeks our team has done really well coming together and developing and overcoming obstacles and being able to get decent finishes out of it, so I think that speaks very highly.”
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM ROGER PENSKE? “It’s kind of hard to point a certain thing out. Just the influence he has on you. I feel like that has definitely changed my outlook not only on the racing side of it, but on my personal life. Being able to see him, whether it’s once a month or twice a month or so, he has other things going on, so he’s at most of the Sunday races, especially this month he’s maybe a little more busy with the Indy Car side of it, but just his work ethic and his outlook on racing and life in general has definitely helped me ever since I went there. And when I got there I was 18 years old and didn’t really grasp the whole racing concept. I just wanted to go drive the race cars, and now since you can sit down and talk to him and kind of see his outlook on things, you kind of change the way you act at the race track and away from it.”
HAS HE BEEN MAD AT YOU? “I don’t know. I thought he was mad at me when I threw the race away at Indy last year, but he was actually very supportive and that really meant a lot.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE ENDURANCE YOU NEED FOR THE 600 NEXT WEEK? “It’s really no different than any other weekend. When we do 500 or even 400-mile races those are still fairly long, but the 600 definitely wears on you. This track is a very demanding race track. I remember I didn’t run 600 last year. I ran about 480 last year and had an issue, but I think they said we were halfway and that one stung a little bit. We were only on lap 200 and I was like, ‘Man, we’ve got a long ways to go,’ but really no different than any other race. You’ve got to stay hydrated. You’ve got to make sure you’re eating a lot during the race. That might be the only thing different. We make sure we eat, whether it’s a protein bar or something like that. I like to have something in there to help out just because it wears on you so much physically and mentally, so that’s really it. There’s nothing too big we do out of the ordinary.”
HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT YOU WOULD DO IF YOU WON THE MILLION DOLLARS? “It hasn’t really crossed my mind, to be honest with you. I can figure that out if we would do it. I don’t really know. That’s a good question. I don’t really have a lot of needs. I wouldn’t go buy a bunch of stuff. I don’t really care about that stuff. I don’t know. Maybe put some money back in my dad’s race shop or something, fund his racing team for a little bit. That would be kind of neat.”
REBUILD THE ELDORA CAR? “That thing is in the trash. He junked it, but that or I think it would be really cool maybe going to find one of my grandfather’s old cars. I think that would be really neat to go find it and restore it, so that would probably be a start.”
DO YOU FOLLOW THE INDY 500 MUCH OR DO YOU FOLLOW IT MORE NOW WITH YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH PENSKE? “I always followed it just because I thought it was neat. Growing up I was a fan of all racing, whether it’s NASCAR, Indy Car, Australian V8 stuff, F1, I liked it all. Definitely now since I’ve been with Penske you watch the Indy Car stuff more just because you know those guys – Will and Helio and Juan and Simon – you support them more just because they’re friends of yours and you like to see that team succeed also, and they’ve been succeeding very well the past few weeks. Simon has been doing a great job over there, so I think it’s really cool to be a part of an organization when it’s the 100th running. I think Mr. Penske is driving he pace car, which is really, really neat, and that would be a heck of a way to cap that off – with a guy who has won there more than anybody, and to be able to do the 100th would be really neat. It’s a shame I can’t go to it, but I’ll definitely be watching on TV.”
HOW WILL THE RESULTS BE DIFFERENT HERE WITH THESE RULE CHANGES THAN IF WE HAD DONE THIS IN A POINTS RACE LIKE LAST YEAR AT DARLINGTON AND KENTUCKY? “I think NASCAR is always trying to make improvements to racing, and they did that this year with the aero package, and I think they’re gonna do it this week with less skew package and the new rules package. The main point is just trying to slow these cars down in the middle of the corner. That makes for better passing, it makes more mechanical grip. You’re always gonna be relying on aero – always. I don’t care if you’re going 70 miles an hour, you’re always gonna have aero troubles and it’s not gonna be as good behind a car. But the more that we can do to try to put more mechanical grip in it and make aero not as big of an issue, the better it’s gonna be. I think the reason why NASCAR wanted to do it in this race rather than a points race like we did last year was to just try it out and really kind of throw the teams a curveball when it doesn’t really have any points implications. You’re just going for one million dollars. I’m not saying you’re just going for one millions dollars, it’s one million dollars, but I think it’s just better than throwing it out there in a points race. I don’t want to say it’s a test session, but it’s almost that way being a non-points race and everything like that.”
