By David Morgan, Associate Editor
CONCORD, N.C. – To hunt or be hunted, that is the question.
After the first half of the NASCAR Cup Series Chase, Ryan Blaney finds himself fifth in the standings, 80 points behind points leader Kyle Larson, having finished in the top five in three of the first five races of the Chase, but with two finishes of 33rd or worse that has him in his current points position.
As a result, Blaney and his No. 12 Team Penske team will have some work to do over the next five weeks, starting with Sunday’s Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but can now go on full offense to claw back the points deficit that they find themselves in.
While Blaney would rather be the driver everyone is chasing, he explained that he doesn’t mind being able to be the driver doing the chasing down the stretch of the championship hunt.
“I’d much rather be leading. I’d much rather be in that spot. But yes, I do understand what you’re saying,” said Blaney.
“Yes, I think there is definitely a little bit of a pressure as being a hunter/hunted type situation, which yes, I mean you would rather be the points leader in controlling things, but there is that little bit of added pressure of don’t mess it up because then you almost start being defensive and you can maybe lose of what got you there.”
In regards to the mindset of the hunter versus the hunted, Blaney compared the current state of the championship chase to his beloved Ohio State Buckeyes when they took on the Texas Longhorns in a No. 1 vs No. 4 matchup back in September.
Ohio State took a 20-3 lead into halftime, but Texas was able to claw its way back into the game in the second half and was able to pull off the victory in a 24-23 shootout.
“I look at, it’s a great example when Ohio State played Texas early this year. I’m a big Buckeye fan. They got up, they kind of started playing a little safe and Texas came back,” Blaney said.
“So, when you start having that lead and trying to keep it, you can maybe shift your mindset to where guys that are chasing, it’s like, well, obviously they can’t afford a mistake either.
“There’s that pressure there of we can’t bleed anymore, but it is a little bit more of, I wouldn’t say relaxing, but it’s just a different mindset of like, oh, we have opportunity to go catch this person.
“I think it’s a little bit different, but I’d much rather have that way on my shoulders of leading it and just trying to maintain it than having to chase. But that’s just my mindset.”
The second half of the Chase certainly lays out well for Blaney and his team to be able to make a run and be back in the fight by the time we get to Homestead in November.
Blaney has a previous win at Charlotte, taking home the victory in the 2023 Coca-Cola 600 and finished seventh there earlier this year after crashing out in each of the last two seasons. He will start from fourth place in Sunday’s race on the 1.5-mile oval.
The following three races at Phoenix, Talladega, and Martinsville are tracks in which Blaney has been able to rack up multiple wins in recent seasons, scoring wins in the last two races at Phoenix, three wins at Talladega, and wins at Martinsville in 2023 and 2025 that propelled him into the championship race.
“There’s some good tracks coming for us. We just had those two bad finishes that put us in a hole and that’s just the way it goes,” said Blaney.
“I think you could have afforded one, having two in a row like we did really hurt, but I think we’re far from out of it. We’ve just got to go and try to go win a couple here in the last handful and just see where that puts us. So those do line up good.
“I mean Phoenix is good for us, Talladega, Martinsville, Homestead’s been decent. So, we’ve just got to try to slowly chip away over the next five weeks and you never know, maybe we can have a shot, a realistic shot when we get to Miami. Never know.”
Be the first to comment