NASCAR star Ryan Blaney risks controversy with latest Cup Series hot take

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For most involved in stock car racing, the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway is well and truly the jewel in NASCAR’s crown.

And for good reason, too. The Daytona 500 has been running for 67 years, and throughout that time, some of NASCAR’s biggest names have been victorious in what has been dubbed ‘The Great American Race’.

However, Team Penske star Ryan Blaney disagrees. In fact, the former Cup Series champion only has the Daytona 500 ranked third when it comes to crown jewel events in NASCAR’s elite series.

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Ryan Blaney ranks NASCAR’s crown jewel events

In an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Blaney ranked NASCAR’s crown jewel events in the following order:

1. Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway

2. Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway

3. Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway

4. Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Offering his logic for the above rankings, Blaney explained: “To me personally, there’s four crown jewels, I know a lot of people probably won’t agree with that.

“But it’s Daytona, Darlington, Coke 600 and Indy – I put Indy in there and in my mind, that’s just what it is.

Blaney continued: “To me, I feel like it’s [ranked] Coke 600, Darlington, Daytona, then Indy. That’s my list.”

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Blaney: I’m gonna get flack

In response to the above, Mike Bagley asked Blaney: “Really? Daytona’s number three?”

“Yeah,” Blaney responded. “I’m going to be honest with you, it don’t matter if it’s number one, two, three, four, I’m going to get flack for it. That’s just the way it goes.

“But that’s just my personal ranking system of races. My opinion, and that’s just where I’ve always thought of it.

“I don’t know, I think it’s [Darlington] just such a cool race, and it’s so hard to win and a lot of things can happen – all of these races are hard to win, I mean every single one of them is.

“But for me personally, going through it as a driver, I look at what is the physical and mental demands of these certain races? And Darlington is really up there as really physical and really mentally asks a lot of you to get through that night and achieve it.”

Blaney finished 18th at last weekend’s playoff opener at the South Carolina track, with its difficulties no doubt fresh in his memory.

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