CONCORD, N.C. — To outsiders Ryan Blaney may not to appear to be a Team Penske type of guy, but Blaney recently signed a contract extension to remain with the only NASCAR Cup Series team he’s known.
Blaney, 32, is grateful for the long-term relationship with the organization in 2012.
“It’s been a dream to be over there as long as I have. It’s crazy,” Blaney said Tuesday on a Ford media conference call. “I sit down and I look back through these talks that we’ve had and going forward and sitting down 14 years ago I walked through the door at that place. It’s crazy to me that I’ve spent almost half of my life at that organization and with those people.
“Roger has let me be my own person. He’s just kind of let me be who I am, my own personality, and at the same time I have respect for what that team is built for, obviously,” Blaney continued. “I’d say I’ve probably pushed the limits a little bit years ago when I started the long hair and doing the playoff beard and things like that, but RP let me do it and he just wanted me to be my own person and things like that.
“I think Roger’s biggest thing is how you treat people, whether that’s people who work for Roger, the partners, that goes on us too,” Blaney said. “How is your relationship with our partners and the people there? That’s really all he cares about, I believe at the end of the day, is are your functioning to what you need to do. Are you doing the work? Are you cordial with everybody? Are your partners happy? Do you have good relationships with them, and I’ve been really lucky to have that while being able to maybe not look the Penske driver look. So, I thank him for letting me be me.”
Blaney, who won the 2023 Cup Series championship and has earned 18 victories in the series, said winning contributes to having a little leeway when it comes to demonstrating more of his personality publicly.
“I definitely think it plays a little role in it. If you’re running competitively week in and week out, winning races, yeah, I feel like you do have a little bit more of a leash. If you’re screwing around and not in the shop or anything like that through the weeks, and you’re running really bad, then you’re probably gonna have a pretty short leash,” Blaney said. “It’s like, the reason you’re not running good is because you’re not around. I don’t know.
“That’s with everything. If you can do a great job on the track and stuff like that, yeah, you’re gonna have a little bit more leeway, so I do think that plays a slight role in it, but every team is different. Every owner expects something different. I’ve been lucky that Roger has let me do my process of what I’ve done. I’m these days in the shop. I kind of go about things a certain way and he’s let me do that, but to answer your question, it plays a little role – maybe not hugely, but a little bit.”
Blaney will be looking to win the NASCAR All-Star Race for the second time as the event will be held at Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway for the first time on Sunday.
“I personally don’t really care where it goes. You can move that race around. Would I enjoy seeing it at Charlotte a week before the 600 like we used to have?” Blaney said. “Yeah, because I feel like that’s always a fun lead up to the 600 because you can make a whole week out of it.
“But I think it’s interesting. They can always throw new formats at it and new places. To me, I don’t really care what the format is or where we race. I’m gonna go anywhere you tell me and gonna try to give it my best and go try to win a bunch of money. That’s really what it is at the end of the day. It doesn’t really matter to me where it’s at.”
