Ryan Blaney’s journey to the NASCAR Cup Series championship was another great example of peaking at the right time. It was the same scenario that helped catapult Team Penske’s Joey Logano to his second Cup Series title in 2022.
As the NASCAR playoffs went deeper, Blaney and his Team Penske crew got better. They didn’t have to worry about desperation to get into the Championship 4, because he had one of the best cars in the field during the final cutoff race of the season at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
Blaney arrived at Phoenix for the Championship Race brimming with confidence and performing at the best level of his career.
That confidence, however, was tested during the race.
The 29-year-old, third-generation racer from High Point, N.C., wanted to claim the championship in a flourish by winning the race. Ross Chastain of Trackhouse Racing had his own motives for winning at Phoenix.
Blaney believed he needed to be in the lead to keep his nearest championship rivals – Kyle Larson and William Byron – from closing his gap. But once he was assured by team owner Roger Penske that he didn’t need to win to secure the title, Blaney chased Chastain to the checkered flag and completed his journey.
Even though his family has a rich history of dirt racing, Ryan Blaney followed a paved path to NASCAR success. He started in quarter midgets and advanced through Bandoleros, Legend Cars and the various divisions of late models.
His journey to the NASCAR Cup Series championship began in earnest when he was 19. That’s when father (Dave Blaney) and son began meeting with Cup Series team owners in an effort to jumpstart the Ryan’s career.
“I remember going in the bus and talking to Roger (Penske) in 2012 with my dad. I was 19 and looking for an opportunity,” Ryan Blaney recalled. “I don’t know how many people know this, but I visited a lot of different teams back in 2012. I went to Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Joe Gibbs and stuff like that, trying to find somewhere to have a shot at a job.
“I got lucky at the time from the Penske side, from Brad Keselowski’s side and Brad was a huge part of it as well, getting me in there.
“I think Roger had a lot of respect for my dad and he liked what he saw in the short little brief period, and I think Brad put a lot of good words in his ear, too.
“It’s just a lot of people, fortunately, speaking fairly good about me — not that I deserved it, especially back then just getting going, but it gave me opportunities, so however they convinced him to give me a shot is pretty spectacular. And not only giving me a shot in 2012 but sticking with me for 10 years says a lot about his character and his trust in people.
“There’s a reason why there are a ton of people at Penske that have been there for over 10 years, over 20 years. He puts his faith in people and just lets them grow. That’s the kind of amazing person he is.”
Penske had faith in the young racer and gave him his first break in 2012 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Blaney had previously competed in four NASCAR Xfinity races that year for team owner Tommy Baldwin.
His first race with Team Penske was at Iowa Speedway on Aug. 2, 2012. He ran nine Xfinity Series races for Team Penske and a similar number of Craftsman Truck Series events for Brad Keselowski Racing that season, creating a career path that led to the NASCAR Cup Series title.
“It’s been a long journey for him,” Penske noted. “Remember it was 2012 when his dad came into our motorhome at Richmond, and we talked.
“Here’s this young guy with lots of passion and wanted to be a champion. We bought into his package at that point, and he won with Brad in trucks. He won in our Xfinity car early on in 2013, so we saw that he knew how to be a winner.
“I think that’s one of the first things we try to do is can you be a winner? Then, you’ve got to jell with the team and I think as he moved on in his career with our technical partner, the Wood Brothers, he became a driver for them. I think when we really saw his capability was in 2017 when he won the race at Pocono.”
Blaney scored his first career NASCAR Cup Series win at Pocono Raceway in the famed No. 21 Ford when he was with Wood Brothers Racing. He battled it out with Kevin Harvick to score the victory by .139 seconds.