Looking at his results at superspeedway races, it’s no surprise why that is. Four of Blaney‘s ten Cup Series victories have come at Daytona or Talladega.
In the Daytona 500, the Team Penske driver has two runner-up finishes and has been agonizingly close to capturing the checkered flag on several other occasions.
“I feel like I’ve been close to this thing a couple of times. I had a good shot to win it a couple years ago and it just didn’t work out,” said Blaney during Daytona 500 Media Day on Wednesday. He now aims to be the first driver in over twenty years to follow up a NASCAR Cup Series title with a win in the 500.
Ryan Blaney, Team Penske, Menards/Great Lakes Flooring Ford Mustang
Photo by: Lesley Ann Miller / Motorsport Images
“When people ask me that, I mean, that’s the dream deal. You win the championship and then turn right around and win the 500. The last person to do it was Dale Jarrett in 2000, so it’s about time someone maybe does it again. We’ll see. You just try to learn from experiences from previous races here and figure out, ‘Hey, what did we do well to put us in a spot to win? And what decisions did I make that kind of kept us out of victory lane?’ And you just hope to find yourself in those spots again and try to make the right decision, so we’ll see. You just try to be rolling at the end of it and hopefully you’re there, but I’m excited for it. It should be great and try to add the 500 onto RP’s [Roger Penske] Rolex 24 that he got not too long ago here.”
This will be Blaney’s tenth start in ‘The Great American Race,’ and he has been studying footage from recent Cup races at drafting tracks to better prepare himself for this weekend’s effort.
“Yeah, I look at it all. For example, I watch through the couple weeks leading up to this race I watched last year’s 500. I watched ‘22’s 500. I watch each summer race from here the last couple of years, and then I watch even some Talladega races, just drafting tracks, just trying to see scenarios. I usually look at other places I look at my scenarios and that’s just me and my spotter do that work of like what did we do well, what did we do poorly. Even the finishes here it’s like, what move did this guy make at the end of the race last year and in ‘22 that got him the win, so you try to study all that.
“You never know. There are a million, trillion situations that can pop up, but you just try to…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Motorsport.com – NASCAR – Stories…