DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Ryan Blaney parked his car against the high-banked outside wall at Daytona International Speedway and floored it, spinning his rear tires and sending plumes of smoke into the grandstands as fireworks lit up the sky.<\/p>\n
It was a unusual celebration for the Team Penske star — he doesn\u2019t usually do celebratory burnouts — and it might be the first of many down the stretch this year.<\/p>\n
Blaney closed NASCAR\u2019s regular season with a flurry, winning at Daytona and moving into fourth place in the Cup Series points heading into the playoffs. He will open the postseason Sunday at Darlington Raceway three points behind Denny Hamlin and six shy of co-leaders William Byron and Kyle Larson.<\/p>\n
And Blaney might just be the favorite to win it all, especially considering his past and his present. The 31-year-old Blaney notched his sixth consecutive top-10 finish with the Daytona victory, making him the series\u2019 hottest driver.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it speaks volumes to how good we have been when we\u2019ve finished races,\u201d Blaney said, recalling seven events in which he either crashed or had engine trouble. \u201cI\u2019d say half those DNFs (Did Not Finish), we had a good chance of winning the race or at least running top five.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just shows that we\u2019ve been running good through the races and the stages and maybe not gotten the finishes we deserved. \u2026 But it\u2019s been nice to have the last month and a half kind of be just smooth and for us to finish like I feel like where we should finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
This one was the most dramatic by far. Blaney made up 12 spots during the final two laps to beat Daniel Suarez, Justin Haley and Cole Custer in a four-wide finish. The come-from-behind victory kept all three of those contenders out of the playoffs and locked Alex Bowman of Hendrick Motorsports into the 16-car field.<\/p>\n
Bowman said afterward he owes Blaney \u201c7 million beers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, I\u2019ll take 5 million,\u201d Blaney quipped while holding a half-empty red plastic cup between his legs. \u201cI\u2019ll save him some money. \u2026 I\u2019ll take that offer. I do need a refill if he\u2019s still here. I can start with one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given how Blaney and Team Penske have performed in the playoffs during the past three years — the powerhouse team has won three in a row, with Joey Logano\u2019s two titles sandwiched around Blaney\u2019s 2023 championship — no one should be surprised to see him swigging alcohol in victory lane after the season finale at Phoenix Raceway in November.<\/p>\n
Blaney finished first or second four times during the final six races in 2023 to claim his first Cup championship. He was equally stout the following year, finishing second, first and second in the final three events and got edged by Logano in the finale.<\/p>\n
Even in 2022, when Blaney finished eighth in the standings, he had four top-five finishes in his past seven starts.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s pretty special,\u201d said Blaney\u2019s crew chief, Jonathan Hassler. \u201cWe just needed a little bit of things to go our way to get it across the finish line. But he\u2019s there every week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blaney\u2019s parents were on hand for the race, a rarity this season and even more surprising they came to Daytona, where the action is intense and the accidents can be harrowing.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad hates speedway racing. He hates watching it,\u201d the younger Blaney said. \u201cMy mom is a nervous wreck the whole time. I\u2019m like, \u2018Just stay home.\u2019 They just pace and pace and pace. But it\u2019s fortunate that we were able to pull one out, so it was good to see him in victory lane.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blaney treated them and everyone else inside the famed track to a smoke show. Why? Well, he ended an 11-race winless skid for Ford, had several sponsors in town for the weekend and delivered one of the event\u2019s more improbable endings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was fired up, man,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cWhenever you win at these speedways, it pumps you up. \u2026 It\u2019s so cool to win here, and it was a big night. \u2026 It was a lot of things culminating, and I thought it deserved (a burnout).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Ryan Blaney parked his car against the high-banked outside wall at Daytona International Speedway…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-97717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}