Ryan Blaney, driver of the No. 12 Menards/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse, stopped by the Talladega infield media center before today’s NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session and answered questions from the media. Blaney goes into tomorrow’s race in second place, 28 points above the cut line.
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT IS YOUR MINDSET COMING TO TALLADEGA? “I think we’ve had some success here as a group for a long time and there are a number of factors that go into it. I don’t know, I think we see these races as big opportunities for us. We’ve come to look forward to these events. I know some people come out and say, ‘We don’t look forward to these events.’ That’s not a good mindset to have, so I think how do we maximize the weekend, whether it’s here or Daytona or Atlanta. How do we work together as a team between Joey, Austin and myself and Harrison? How do we try to support each other and try to do the best we can for our groups? I feel like we do a better job at teamwork here than anybody else. I feel like we constantly look for each other. We constantly have each other’s backs, and that’s what you need here. That’s what we’ve done to be successful at these racetracks. We don’t look at it like, ‘Oh, Talladega.’ You know that things aren’t fully in your control and that’s just a given, and you just put that out of the way and say, ‘Hey, how do we execute this race as good as we can,’ and understand that if things do happen to us that isn’t in our control, well, that’s just the way it is. It stinks, but it’s just not anything you can really stew over, so I think our group has a really good mindset when it comes to these places – good or bad – and you never know what the outcome is gonna be.”
ONLY ONE NON-PLAYOFF DRIVER HAS WON THIS RACE SINCE 2014. DO YOU VIEW THIS RACE AS A CRAPSHOOT OR AS ONLY A SELECT FEW WHO CAN WIN? “I think the opportunity for a potential surprise winner is higher here than other places. That’s just how it is. I don’t see it as a complete crapshoot. You have your guys who run really well at these racetracks, and you have your guys that maybe struggle a little bit as far as decision-making and all that stuff. I don’t think it’s a secret that some folks excel at this type of racing. I think Denny is great. Brad is great. Joey is awesome. For years and years those guys have found themselves at the front of these things at the end of them and that’s just not all by chance. I feel like if they stay clean and don’t get tore up, they’re always at the front of these things at the end. It’s just how they strategize their race. A small percentage of it is a crapshoot, just because you could be riding around – like, I look at Daytona has been a crapshoot for me for the last three years. I don’t think I’ve finished a race at Daytona in two years, just getting tore up in someone else’s mess, but when we do stay out of the trouble, we run pretty good. I think you have your folks that are comfortable with it and they do well, and then you have others that might struggle a little bit more.”
WHAT’S THE MENTALITY THIS YEAR IN THE PLAYOFFS? “I go into every weekend, our whole group goes into every weekend wanting to win, obviously, and expecting to win. I think our group is capable of that and I think we’ve done a great job up to this point. I think we as a company and as the 12 team are way stronger than what we were at this point last year. Our cars are faster. We’re gelling as a team better. We don’t come to these places expecting to win, we just come and try to do our job the best we can do our job. Do you execute well on pit road? Do you try to make more good decisions than bad decisions out there? You’re obviously going to have some moves that don’t work for you and that’s just the way it is, but you just have confidence going to these places and it’s the same every week. I don’t go to a certain place looking forward to it more than others. I look forward to every weekend and just trying to see what we can bring to the track and how we can utilize our efforts and skills the best that we can and that’s really all I ask for. Kind of a big thing on our team is do your job to the best of your ability and if you do the best to your ability, you can at least hold your head high and whatever happens happens. If you win, great. If not, you did the best job you could and I think that’s just something we’ve thought about through the last year and a half, two years and I think everyone is just kind of taking that in a good way – like I want to give all of myself on this weekend and this day and see what happens to it.”
HOW ARE YOU LOOKING AT THE ROVAL AND THE CHANGES THEY’VE MADE THERE? “I haven’t walked the track. I have done sim work. It’s a little different. The frontstretch chicane is a little bit tighter. I don’t think that’s the biggest change. Obviously, five, six, seven are the biggest changes. I think you opened up a passing zone in seven. It’s gonna be kind of a dive bomb central corner, for sure, just the way it’s shaped, so that will be interesting to see how it races. You’re gonna have to drive that corner very differently if you have pressure or not behind you, and, honestly, I think the frontstretch chicane is gonna be a slower corner, so I feel like you might have some more out-braking potential there, so I think it’s good. I think it’s good they changed it up. Whenever you add passing zones, that’s good for a race. It’s the same for everybody. It’s gonna be different for everyone and just who can adapt to it the quickest. I’ve done some sim work. I’ve got another session this week and we’ll see where it goes.”
YOU ARE SOLID IN THE POINTS. DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE YOU ARE DURING THAT RACE NEXT WEEK? “Yeah, I look at the points before the weekend. ‘OK, this is where I’m at.’ I don’t really look at the points again and then through the race they kind of give me updates. Where is it looking after stage one, after stage two, and then after stage two you have an idea of, ‘OK, I’m racing these guys. These folks have gotten this amount of points.’ I’m here to the cut line. This is kind of what I need to do.’ We did the same thing at Bristol. After the first two stages they said, ‘Hey, OK, you have to finish ahead of this guy or X amount of positions.’ And then we’re done talking about it. I don’t want constant updates, but I like a little bit of feedback after every break in the race with points and stuff, and the Roval always kind of gets funky with people flipping stages and stuff. Hopefully, we’re in a good spot leaving tomorrow to where we can just go have a solid race at the Roval and not have to hit a home run, but if we have to hit a home run, I’m sure we’ll do everything we can to do that.”
WHERE DID THIS EVOLUTION OF FUEL MILEAGE IN THESE RACES START? HOW HAVE WE GOTTEN TO THIS POINT? “That’s a great question. I’d love to tell you how or why it’s gotten this way, it just has. Do I like it? No. I don’t know if anyone really likes it. It’s kind of just turned into a gas game the first run of the stages to where, ‘hey, I can take a second less gas or a second and a half, two seconds less gas than this guy and I’m gonna jump him on a caution or a green flag stop.’ And I think it’s just gotten this way mainly because it’s hard to make up spots anymore. This car is so draggy that the third lane, especially here, Daytona is better because it’s more handling, but here handling is not a big thing so the third lane just kind of hurts. The bottom lane isn’t lifting like you have at turn four of Daytona to where the top can kind of get rolling late in a run. I feel like you’ve got to take drag off of these cars at these places to just where handling becomes a little bit more of an issue. The top can go a little bit better, so now if you’re mired back in 20th, I’m not going to the front, so I might as well just try to be more efficient with fuel save than the next guy and I’m gonna jump him on the stop, so that’s the strategy and that’s the easiest way to make positions and that’s just the constant thing is I’d say the last year everyone has gotten smartened up and now everyone is doing it. I feel like we were one of the first groups to kind of like, ‘OK, this is a good strategy. Let’s do this,’ and now everyone has a good idea about it, so, ‘OK, how do you still do it better than the rest of the folks?’ That’s hard to do. The cars are draggy. It’s hard to make up positions on the track and they almost drive too good here to do that, so it’s just the game we’re playing now. It’s just can you do it a little bit better than the next guy.”
YOU SAID THIS TEAM IS STRONGER AND IN A BETTER POSITION THAN LAST YEAR. AFTER FOUR RACES HOW DO YOU FEEL NOW? “I feel great about our group. It was hard to see how good we were because we got wrecked in the last 40 percent of races, like the Glen we didn’t even get a run. Darlington, we were great and got wrecked on lap two. Daytona, I got wrecked at the end of that race Our speed has been great. I look at the other races from Atlanta and Bristol and Kansas and we’ve been running top five every week, so I think our speed is great. We had a little bit of execution issues on pit road last week, but you hope to clean all of that stuff up and they work hard to try to get that better, but I feel great about where our group is at. It’s just a matter of staying out of trouble and just controlling the things we can control, but I love where we’re at right now pace-wise. I think for us to run as good as we did at Kansas last week really showed, that’s a place where we’ve struggled as a company ever since this new car and for us to run as good as we did, myself was fast. Joey and Austin were great before they had their issues as well and luckily we were able to have a good finish out of it. I feel good about it and we’ll just try to keep going. We’ll see.”
HOW DOES YOUR OFFSEASON LOOK COMPARED TO WHAT YOU DO DURING THE SEASON? “I don’t know. I’m lazier in the winter, for sure. I drink a little bit more (laughing), but I enjoy the offseason. It’s a long year. I just like to relax and just kind of unwind. Your mindset is just so different in the competing months during the year of you’re constantly on kill mode and as a competitor you’re trying to figure out ways to better yourself or outsmart the competition. The fire in you is lit all the time and in the offseason I try to turn that off. I have no reason to be competitive in the winter. I’m not competing with anybody, so I just try to mellow out a little bit in the winter and enjoy things that maybe you can’t enjoy through the year. I don’t know if I’ll be able to relax too much. I’m getting married, so it’ll be full blow. I’ll be focused on that when Phoenix is over, but I just turn the competitive nature off and just let your mind kind of rest a little bit. Your mind is pretty tense through the year, so I think it’s nice to get that breath and relaxation even if it’s a month, it’s still nice. It’s better than nothing.”
WHY DO YOU THINK IT HAS BEEN SO HARD FOR SOMEONE TO REPEAT AS CHAMPION OF LATE? “I don’t know why you haven’t seen a repeat champion back-to-back since Jimmie when he won five in a row. I don’t know why. That was just one of those rare instances, Jimmie winning five. Who was the person before Jimmie to win back-to-back? Was it Jeff? I don’t know. It’s tough to do. Teams are always getting smarter. It takes everything kind of perfect to go your way. The team has to execute the best they can and you have to have a little bit of fortune on your side to not be in any unfortunate circumstances through the playoffs, so I don’t know why. I look back and there have been plenty of teams good enough to win back-to-back and it just hasn’t happened. I think that just shows you how hard it is to do. It’s a lot easier, I feel like, to win back-to-back in other sports because you’re one v one pretty much when these games and racing there are so many other competitors it’s like trying to win the Master’s back-to-back. You’re competing against so many other people that it’s just hard to do it perfectly two years in a row. I’m confident with our group and that’s not from a cocky or arrogant standpoint. I have faith in our group that we can do it and we’re good enough to where we can do it again, and I just have so much faith in our team and our guys. I’d like to, obviously. I think we’re in a good position. We just have to keep doing what we can and keep staying hungry. It’s funny, I think we’re all even hungrier for a second one than we were the first. I said it in an interview somewhere, but it’s like you taste the forbidden fruit and you want another bite of it. You want that feeling again. You want to share that moment with all your folks that work hard with you week in and week out and through the year. Hopefully, we can break that trend. We’ll see.”
