By David Morgan, Associate Editor
TALLADEGA, Ala. – After his early exit from the Round of 8 opener in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs last weekend at Las Vegas, Ryan Blaney allowed himself the leeway to ruminate in the disappointment of his bad luck, but only until the calendar shifted to the next day.
Then it was time to focus forward on the task at hand for the No. 12 Team Penske Ford this weekend at Talladega and next weekend at Martinsville, where the 2023 series champion will look to climb out of a 31-point deficit in the standings.
“I try to tell myself, you can be upset about something. I allowed myself to be upset about Vegas until I woke up Monday morning,” said Blaney.
“Kind of be down about it, whatever, do what you got to do. But when the new week comes and you open your eyes Monday morning, you’re going to be fully focused on the next week. And I think all our guys on this team does that, which is good.
“And that just comes with time and experience and getting older. And unless you made a serious mistake, then you have to really reflect on it and how can I not make that mistake again? But if it’s something like the Vegas thing, it’s like, oh, just move past it.
“What good is it going to do me for thinking about it for four days and stewing over it and stuff like that? That just takes your mentality and your mind off of what’s next. What do you have to do now to kind of rebound from that. So, I think that just comes with time.
“I decided to do that a handful of years ago and just not let it bug me too much later on and just go figure out what do I have to do next to get myself out of this hole or position.”
If there were two tracks that Blaney needed to be able to capitalize on to erase his Las Vegas downfall, Talladega and Martinsville are two of the tracks that fall right into his wheelhouse.
Blaney has scored three wins at Talladega, most recently in 2023 en route to the championship, but will need to turn around his luck on the 2.66-mile superspeedway with finishes of 20th, 39th, and 37th in the last three races there.
Martinsville has been kinder to Blaney, with his two wins on the half-mile short track coming in the Fall race the last two seasons to punch his ticket to the Championship 4.
Regardless, Blaney is bringing an optimistic outlook to this weekend on the 2.66-mile superspeedway, hoping that a positive attitude behind the wheel will transfer into performance on the track on Sunday.
“This place has been good to me and it’s been bad to me. I mean, I think that’s what these drafting style tracks are going to do to you a little bit,” Blaney said of Talladega.
“But I have always come with the mindset coming to Daytona or Talladega, Atlanta nowadays, of enjoying ’em. I’m going to enjoy this type of racing. And I’ve never understood the guys who go to a place, they’re like, I hate it. And you are like, well, you’re kind of behind the eight ball. Your mentality is not a good spot before the weekend.
“And I’ve just tried not to ever be that way. I’ve always tried to, Hey, this is going to be a different race. Speedway racing is different than everywhere else, but I’m going to go enjoy it and try our best and whatever happens, happens.
“So that’s the way I try to go about everywhere and especially these plate races, people can get pretty down, not looking forward to ’em, but I just have never really understood that before you even unload.”
As for what he needs to do to reverse his fortunes in the points standings, Blaney re-iterated that he did not think he was in a must-win situation, even sitting 31 points in arears of the cut-off line, with the unpredictability that comes with superspeedway racing.
By the end of 500 miles on Sunday, everything could change.
“I don’t think for me standing here right now before the weekend gets going that I’m in a must win right now. I mean, some things can happen during the race. I could go have a big day short of winning and maybe a couple guys don’t have very good days and it can flip,” Blaney explained.
“I went to Vegas six up and I’m 31 back and it could be, I could make a lot of that up. It just depends how the race goes. You never know. But the mission is always try to gather your stage points and try to put yourself in a spot to have a good run at the end of the day. And then you look at where you’re at Martinsville and then it kind of decides.
“Hell, it could be decided at the end of the first stage if we have a bad first stage and other guys get big points, it might shift to a must win type scenario today and next week. You just kind of have to see how the first part of the race plays out and go from there.”
Blaney will roll off from eighth place on Sunday. The 188-lap superspeedway slugfest will kick off at 2:00 pm ET on NBC.
