Kevin Harvick became known as “The Closer” during his illustrious NASCAR Cup Series career.
Harvick had a knack of darting his way into the fight for victories late in races that had television commentators such as Darrell Waltrip exclaim, “Where did he come from?”
With Harvick now retired, Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney may be the series’ newest clutch driver.
Looking back at last year’s Round of 8 cutoff race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, Blaney took care of business in dominant fashion as he punched his ticket to the Championship 4. He went on to win the title with a runner-up finish at Phoenix Raceway.
Fast-forward to Sunday and Blaney perhaps upped his performance from last year.
The driver of the No. 12 Ford needed a victory to clinch a spot in the title-deciding race next week as he was 38 points below the cutline.
While Blaney ran up front for the majority of the day, his car hadn’t shown race-winning pace.
It wasn’t until the final stint of the Xfinity 500 when Blaney and his race car came to life. After passing fellow playoff driver William Byron with 42 laps to go, the defending champion set his sights on Byron’s teammates, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott.
Sure enough, Blaney chopped a deficit of more than three seconds to a matter of car lengths as he made quick work of Larson before passing Elliott with 12 laps to go.
Blaney went untouched the rest of the way to the checkered flag to secure a spot in the championship race for a second straight year.
While the word “clutch” can quickly be used to describe Blaney’s performance, he credited his team, led by crew chief Jonathan Hassler.
“I feel like our group does a really good job, and I’ve worked really hard on this with Jonathan and my guys, of focusing on what I need at the end of these races,” Blaney said. “Like the last two runs of (the) race, ‘Where is the track going, how do we get ahead of the track that’s going to change?’ Especially today, the sun started to go down, track changed pretty significantly.
“I just tried to look forward to the end of the race. We’ve done a really good job of, like, preparing that, looking at past history, what’s worked for us in previous races through the year when the track does start to change.
“I feel like that’s been great for us,” Blaney continued. “I didn’t really do that very well when I was younger, my first few years of racing in the Cup deal. I took it one lap at a time, didn’t focus on the end of the race or changes that the race track was going through.
“We worked really hard on that the last few years. I feel like it’s paying off.”
Blaney and his team’s big-picture mentality has given the group plenty of poise. As the driver fresh off a victory heads to Phoenix, Blaney is a firm believer that momentum is a strong ally for he and his No. 12 team next week.
“I believe in confidence and stuff like that,” Blaney began. “I think this is the same as last year, right? You carry it into next week.
“Honestly, those guys had a couple weeks to kind of prepare. It’s like you can only prepare so much, right? When your car is built, your car is built, right? We even have guys that are working on the car like it was going to the championship. Everyone does in the Round of 8, just in case it does happen and no matter what week it happens. People ask me, ‘Which one would you rather win?’ I don’t care, any of them to get to Phoenix.
“This team is really prepared to do it. Hopefully we can carry that momentum that we had last year winning this race on to next week as well.”