Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
NASCAR Zoom Media Availability | Friday, July 9, 2021
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Advance Auto Parts Ford Mustang — LOOKING BACK AT THE WIN IN MARCH, HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT TO GET A WIN SO EARLY? “It was really important. To win early like that was great. The last couple months for us probably haven’t been the smoothest as far as needing a little bit of overall speed and just kind of needing to tidy things up from my side, from pit road side. It just hasn’t been very smooth and you kind of go through those rough patches during your season and you just hope to clean them up by playoff time. Talking about Atlanta, it’s nice to go back there and to a place we were so fast there in the spring. It’ll be a little bit different this weekend just being hotter and things like that, but at the end of the day it’s the same racetrack pretty much, and try to go back there with the same mindset of setup stuff and try to adjust to the temperature, but it was really big getting that win early in the season. I wish that we could have more. You obviously want more and to be running a little bit better, but hopefully, I think this weekend will be a really good idea to see where we stack up, going back to a place where we won at and was really competitive — to kind of see where we stack up now with us probably thinking we need a little bit of speed, just kind of seeing. I think we’ll be good. Hopefully, we can have a really good run and find out where we end up.”
WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE NEXT GEN CAR AND SAFETY ASPECT? DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE A GOOD IDEA OF WHERE NASCAR IS AT AS FAR AS THE CAR OR A TIME WHERE YOU NEED TO START HAVING A GOOD FEEL? “We had a meeting, all of the drivers, with NASCAR before the 600 at the R&D Center and they went through a lot of stuff with Next Gen development and things like that. That was a little bit ago. I think since then they’ve had some more crash tests of it, so we didn’t have a ton of information back then about it. I don’t have a great answer on that. I’m sure they’ll come out with that whenever they get some good numbers and things like that. I know there are rumors going around and stuff like that, but as far as that goes I don’t think there’s enough information out there to have truthful rumors and things like that, so we’ll see where it stacks up. I don’t have a lot for you on that side of it right now. Sorry.”
FORD HAS WON THE LAST FIVE RACES AT ATLANTA. WOULD YOU BET ON A FORD WINNING AND HOW DO YOU THINK THE FORDS STACK UP? “That’s a great question. I’d like to tell you that we’re gonna lap everybody, but it’s easier said than done. The Fords obviously we’ve got a good track record at Atlanta, like you said, winning the last five, but I feel like — just trying to stack up organizations — Hendrick has obviously been really fast everywhere recently, really all year, so I hope we can go back there on Sunday and be as competitive as what we were there in the spring and run with some of those cars that have been very fast all year and especially recently. I think the Ford aspect is going pretty decent. Everyone is working really hard to try and catch up to some speed that we need, whether it’s the Chevys or Toyotas. Obviously, I think the Chevys have been pretty stout in these late spring and summer months, so just trying to get everything we can. I know we’re all working hard, not only on the Penske side, but the Ford and the Roush Yates side to try to get a little bit more everywhere because that’s what you need. A little bit goes a long way, so hopefully we’ll get a good idea here this weekend on our mile-and-a-half stuff. I thought we made a pretty good step at Pocono. We had a couple good runs there on that doubleheader weekend, so that’s the last 550 race we ran. I feel like those little steps and then just taking some more steps forward in trying to find speed is good and we’ll get a good idea about where we stack up this weekend.”
WHAT DO YOU RECALL OF THE MARCH WIN? “I remember a lot of it, just kind of how our car was handling throughout the race with the changes we made to kind of make it better and better throughout the race. One of the things I really learned and I remember is my car would pretty much run a lot of different lanes. We talk about one and two is pretty wide, you kind of have a bunch of options there, but three and four everyone always talks about the bottom and you have to be on the bottom. I feel like that is the preferred lane, especially on long runs, but I could run the fence pretty good in three and four, and that’s how I got by Kyle is I was able to get off the fence, so that, to me, was really big for our group — that I could run the wall in three and four if I had to. Let’s say I was kind of slowed up behind a car or something like that, I could bail to the top and get in some clean air and actually able to make lap time up there. You don’t want to do that every lap, but that’s something I really remember and hopefully we’ll have that again because you don’t see that a ton with people running the top that much in three and four, but that option was there for me and I hope I can have that again, just to be able to go up there if you get the lap traffic or you’re trying to pass somebody that you’re racing. That was big for your group.”
HOW MUCH OF A CONFIDENCE BOOSTER IS IT FOR YOU GOING BACK TO ATLANTA AFTER WINNING THE LAST TIME? “It’s a big confidence booster going back to a place where you’ve won at, and I’ve had pretty good runs there. We ran good there in ‘19, so I feel like that place has been pretty good to me in the recent years, and winning there in the spring definitely increases your confidence going back there and seeing how you do, so as with any place going back to a spot where you’ve had success at you’re always confident to go back and try to repeat that success. After you win, you have a really good notebook of how your setup was that day and then you’re able to work on it and try to adjust like for this weekend the temperature. So, the confidence level is really high and hopefully it all correlates and we can have the same success here on Sunday.”
HAS THERE BEEN ANYMORE CONVERSATION WITH WILLIAM BYRON OR YOUR SISTER ON HOW YOU RACE EACH OTHER? “I’m not talking about family matters, but as far as he and I racing I took him three-wide twice. Once at the All-Star Race and once at Pocono, so I don’t know about the every chance I got. He blocked me all the way and ran me all the way down to pit road, but I was already there. Me and William, we talked like normal at Road America and it’s all good, but just racing hard. I don’t really understand why that was a big topic of discussion. You see it every single week with people, but I guess maybe there was nothing to talk about, so you had to bring families into it, which I didn’t really enjoy, but he and I are good.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS WHEN YOU SEE YOURSELF ON RADIOACTIVE? “That’s part of it, I guess. I am a very calm person in-person, but when I get behind the wheel of the car I’m passionate about it. I get fired up sometimes about it. It just kind of is what it is. I don’t know, maybe Fox just likes my voice or something like that and they throw me in there, but I do say some stuff that’s probably deserving to be on there, but if I get frustrated I usually just have to get it out of my system and then I’m good. I won the radio sweetheart a couple years ago, so I don’t know if I like getting that award or not, but it gives the people something to listen to, I guess. Maybe I’ll take a break from it. We’ll see.”
HOW DOES TIRE WEAR AT CHARLOTTE COMPARE TO OTHER PLACES LIKE ATLANTA AND DARLINGTON? “I think the Charlotte surface is different. They use a different pavement for it, like you said, it’s a darker pavement than like an Atlanta or Darlington. It doesn’t look as old as like an Atlanta, and I think the tire wear isn’t as bad at Charlotte. You seem to fall off throughout the run, but not as bad as Atlanta or Darlington, but the bumps and the roughness of the racetrack are pretty similar. Atlanta is super bumpy. Charlotte is really bumpy in three and four, so you can compare the two there, but it’s more severe at Atlanta and Darlington just because I think it’s kind of a different pavement than what they use at either racetrack. Charlotte does a pretty good job of wearing tires, I think, just like Atlanta and Darlington and you have that with old surfaces that just get really rough and gritty and chew through tires. That’s pretty fun, for sure, when you kind of have to have tire management, but different pavements make it look different and wear tires out differently and race in a different way.”
DO YOU LOOK AT THIS WEEKEND AS YOUR BEST OPPORTUNITY TO GET MORE PLAYOFF POINTS? “I haven’t really looked at it. I kind of just go week to week and try to figure out how to maximize your potential that week. Atlanta this weekend, I talked about it earlier, the confidence going back there knowing you’ve won there and had good runs there in the past — the playoff points, we haven’t really done a lot of here recently, whether it’s stage points or winning stages and things like that — so Atlanta, hopefully, we can run well and do good, but then you go to Loudon the week after, and we’ve run pretty good at Loudon in the past too, but I don’t try to think too far ahead. I just try to take it week to week and focus all of your attention on this race and I think that’s how I’ve been able to maximize your focus for each race. We’ll start with Atlanta. Hopefully, it’s a good spot for us and we’ll go from there. We need to start getting more stage points, playoff points and all that stuff. Those never hurt and we’ve got to get back on top of that.”
