Ryan Blaney enters the midsection of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs on one of the best rips of his career, savoring a near-weekly accumulation of top-five and top-10 finishes and the points bonanza that comes with it. The momentum has helped his No. 12 Team Penske Ford group roar into the 10-race postseason and handily advance to the second round.
That hasn’t rested on Blaney’s shoulders alone, with a performance upswing that’s involved every branch of the team’s composition — crew chief, pit crew, engineers, you name it — and the veteran poise that has come with keeping that established core intact.
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“I feel like we’ve just kind of gotten into this good rhythm, and that stuff just grows over time,” Blaney said Tuesday during a midweek driver availability. “So yeah, I just think we’re executing the way we need to. I feel like our mindset is just in a good place right now, where everyone’s extremely confident in themselves and their ability, and they believe it, and that stuff definitely helps, you know? So it’s the belief that we can do it. And you know, we’ve had the belief that we can do it the last two, three years. They’re poised to do it, and it’s really fun to be part of a group like that that has that mindset, like everyone’s clicking together, everyone has each other’s backs, like we support if I make a mistake, they’re right there to support me. If they make a mistake, I support them, you know?
“That’s just how a team works. So yeah, I just think we are a pretty well-oiled machine.”
Blaney rides a run of eight top-10 finishes in the last nine Cup Series races heading into Sunday’s Round of 12 opener at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). That torrid stretch includes a victory in the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway, plus two consecutive fourth-place finishes that include last weekend’s top five at Bristol Motor Speedway, where his 4-year-old nephew gave him an unexpected midrace pep talk.
Blaney has used similar late-season pushes to make the Championship 4 field the last two seasons, where he finished second, first and second in the last three races each time, winning the Cup title in 2023. The timing of his No. 12 Ford team’s current hot streak has arrived earlier on the calendar this time, but Blaney hasn’t appeared overly concerned about bottling that performance for later. The more pressing matter might be matching the recent speed shown by Toyota teams, especially after Joe Gibbs Racing swept the three-race Round of 16 to open the playoffs on their own tear.
“Yeah, you take it where you can get it,” Blaney said, nodding toward the timing of his current run. “I’ve been happy with the way we’ve been performing, and you just try to piece by piece get a little bit better, week to week. Toyotas are really strong. They’ve definitely … the last three weeks, you can’t take that away from them. They’ve been incredibly fast, and all their teams have been really executing really well, but I think we’re really close to where we need to be. I have confidence that we can get on that level. So yeah, we’ve been doing a good job of getting to where we need to be, and now it’s just a matter of executing and finding little things here and there that can continue to catapult you along.”
Four drivers were knocked from playoff contention after last Saturday’s elimination race at Bristol. Half of the 12 drivers who remain title-eligible share a common thread as former prospects who once drove for Brad Keselowski Racing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Blaney and current Penske teammates Joey Logano and Austin Cindric are on that list, along with Chase Briscoe, Ross Chastain and Tyler Reddick.
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Though Keselowski’s truck operation closed after the 2017 season, the Cup veteran’s knack for identifying future NASCAR stars remains a lasting legacy. A look at the playoff grid bears that out.
“I think it just speaks a lot on Brad’s knowledge of finding drivers that he thinks have potential to have a solid Cup career,” said Blaney, who delivered four Truck Series victories for Keselowski’s team from 2012-15. “I’ll never forget when Brad asked me to drive his trucks for him in 2012, the second part of 2012, and eventually at the same time led to the Penske opportunity running some Nationwide (now Xfinity Series) stuff, and led to this today. Here we are 13 years later. It’s pretty amazing, honestly, when I sit back and look at it, but I think it speaks a lot to Brad and the opportunities that he gave a lot of great young kids that, hey, you never know where they’re gonna end up. You take a chance on somebody, and it’s pretty cool when it works out, so Brad has a huge part of a lot of our careers, and that was a lot of fun.
“I loved my years at BKR. I loved winning races for them and loved the success that they had when I wasn’t driving those trucks anymore — a lot of good drivers have come from there, so that’s all Brad. That’s all Brad’s eye for who he wants to give a shot to, and it’s pretty cool that a lot of drivers today that are winning races and in the playoffs came from that stable. It speaks a lot to the people that were there, mainly Brad Keselowski.”
From that foundation, Blaney has found his calling as a 15-time Cup Series winner who has etched his name on the list of champions. Finding his way to a second Cup crown this year will involve navigating a tough Round of 12 at New Hampshire, Kansas Speedway and the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval before an even trickier — on paper — Round of 8 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway and Martinsville Speedway, all before the title is decided Nov. 2 at Phoenix Raceway.
Blaney has won at three of the remaining seven tracks left on the playoff schedule. New Hampshire is not in his win column, though his average running position has registered in the single digits in six of the last eight races at the 1.058-mile oval. His last time out there, Blaney was locked in a late-race contest for second place when a collision with Michael McDowell thwarted his chances at victory.
The solid stats and near-the-front positioning there are part of why Blaney is bullish that his best shot at advancing with a Round of 12 win may come this weekend.
“New Hampshire. That’d be ideal,” Blaney said. “… I feel like we’ve run good enough there to where we contend for one.”
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