THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by our 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney.
We'll take questions.
Q. What did you take from last year's Playoff that you applied to the last few weeks?
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I mean, we had a good shot to get here last year. I made mistakes at Vegas and Miami that kept us out. That was pretty brutal for me, for our whole group, right? Whenever you are the one personally making those mistakes, you take it the harshest, right?
Everyone on the 12 group supported me really well. We kind of set into, Hey, what do we need to get better? What are the areas we need to get better? We did that over the off-season, was able to get here this year. I think we learned a lot from last year from multiple sides.
Q. Your dad said you had some conversations about things, manage things. From your perspective, what were those conversations like?
RYAN BLANEY: Dad is right there. He came to the media center with me (smiling). He's taking no questions, though.
No, I mean, he's been awesome, right? He's been not only someone I grew up wanting to be like and wanting to do his sport, obviously getting me started in racing, supported me along the way, opened a lot of doors for me.
For him to still be supportive when I'm an adult is great. His whole thing through the Playoffs was, I see the path, I can see the path to the championship, I can see it.
After we won Martinsville, he's like, It's lit up now, the path is lit up. I think we drove through the gate tonight. So we have arrived. It's cool to have my whole family here, which is special.
Q. After you won at Charlotte, you talked about your confidence level. How much of a turning point do you think that was?
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I think winning the 600 was huge for our organization for multiple reasons. It was big for me after getting out of that slump after not winning for a little bit. It was definitely good.
I got asked earlier about this. I think the big shot in the arm was winning Talladega in the Playoffs. Our team, we struggled through the summer months after the 600. We worked really hard to get better and better. Our team was like teetering on needing a little something good to happen, then we're going to be full-on dangerous.
We won Talladega and it was like green light, let's go, we're really in a good mood here. I think that's what kind of set the rest of our Playoffs off to where they are now.
I think both of those wins were huge, but I personally think Talladega was a big shot in the arm right in the middle of the Playoffs that really got us going.
Q. You talked about Chase winning his championship, feeling good for a friend. Now that you get the opportunity, he came up to the stage, what did that mean? What did you share up there?
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, it means a ton. I remember being there and going up to the stage in 2020 when he won his, just being super proud of him, right? Chase and I have known each other and raced each other for a couple decades. It's pretty special to share something like that with somebody, a close friend like that. For him to show me all the support this week was really neat as well for me. Him kind of checking in on me, seeing how I was doing. He's been here a couple times.
Yeah, to have him up onstage was special. I'm going to enjoy that picture of he and I with the trophy. But no, I mean, he's been an amazing friend to me, great competitor, and it's cool to have that championship that we can share now.
When we were kids starting racing together, we never thought we would be here, have a championship apiece. It's really cool to share that with somebody.
Q. You can remember five years ago when the marketing campaign came out that promoted the young drivers. That was controversial among some of the competitors. To go from where you were in the spotlight, that the guys hadn't deserved the attention yet, to now where you have a championship, Chase, what has that journey been like?
RYAN BLANEY: Well, I think it's nice to kind of have fulfilled that. Yeah, I do remember that, these guys haven't earned this marketing stuff.
It's nice to kind of be able five years later have a couple of us that have won a championship, that kind of solidifies, Well, okay... At the time, right, they're just pushing younger drivers, they're trying to promote the younger guys. Some guys got a little hurt about that.
It's nice that these younger drivers, the newer guys, are succeeding in their own way and being able to have championships and wins. For a fan base to grow up with that, that driver who is in their mid or late 20s, it's something I think people can latch onto.
Obviously now it's easy for me to look back at that marketing campaign, They knew what they were doing (smiling). But you never know how it's going to work.
No, yeah, five years ago I never thought we would be sitting here right now. Seems like they had a little knowledge of where they thought each of us were going to go.
Q. You've been known as somebody that says yes to a lot of things that NASCAR asks. Now you're going to have a whole different opportunity with the championship. How would you like to use this newfound platform to move the sport forward as a champion?
RYAN BLANEY: I'm not really sure, to be honest with you. I'm excited to have those opportunities. I really look forward to facing them head on. I feel like if you get the privilege to be a champion of your sport, it is part of your job to promote your sport and do the best you can to be the best champion that you can.
I'll be honest with you, that's a responsibility I really haven't thought about yet. I think that's going to kind of dawn on me the following days. I think it's part of your job to kind of, hey, embrace it, push the sport. You have this awesome platform now to where you've done something incredible, use that, promote the sport.
I'm excited to see what happens this off-season, see what comes up, to where you're not only growing yourself, you are growing the sport of NASCAR as well. Someone asked me earlier the Netflix deal that's happened right now. I've worked with them a lot through the Playoffs. They've got a lot of inside stuff. I think that's another big thing of promoting the sport in a positive way to a certain audience or a brand-new audience, so...
Q. You came in yesterday and we joked about how you're always even-keeled. Many of us thought you were racing Ross Chastain a little unnecessarily hard. Ross says you got mad at him and ran in the back of him on purpose. Larson and Byron said that's pretty common of you to lose your temper like that. Roger said that you tend to boil over, you pass boiling point. That's not an even-keeled Ryan Blaney that we all know. You got a secret dark side out there? We were specifically told by Roger to ask you about the beard.
RYAN BLANEY: I guess to answer your first question, there's no secret that I can snap on the radio. That's been my whole life. That's been my whole career. It's just kind of something I do.
The fact that Ross said I raced him hard, the dude blocked three lanes in the corner of every lap. I don't know how I'm racing him hard. When you look in the mirror going left, right, left, following wherever I go, I don't understand how he thinks I'm racing him hard. He's backing me up to the 5. I have to go. He's backing me up to Larson to where I'm going to be in trouble.
Q. (No microphone.)
RYAN BLANEY: (Expletive) right I hit him on purpose. I mean, yeah, I hit him on purpose. He blocked me on purpose 10 times. So, yeah, I hit him on purpose.
What do you expect me to do? He's backing me up to the other championship guy, and I got to go. We were just racing hard. But do I think he was overaccessive on the blocks? Yes, very much so. Did I hit him? Yes, I did. That's just part of it.
What else do you want to know, the beard?
Q. Roger specifically said to ask.
RYAN BLANEY: It's here.
Q. (No microphone.)
RYAN BLANEY: I didn't talk about it. I'll shave it off next year for sure. It's a little Playoff beard. It's a little different.
Q. (No microphone.)
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I think that means he wants me to shave it. It will get shaved. Just give me a couple months, yeah.
Q. You talked about peaking at the right time a few times this week. There was a while in the summer where you were down, Penske was down, Ford was down. Now Ford won all three championships. Was there a point that you got down on yourself and thought maybe this isn't the year, or did you always keep the faith and think you were capable of getting this hot right now?
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I mean, I think it is easy to get down. I mean, we won Charlotte in May, then we had like a string of bad runs in two or three months. That was kind of across the board.
When RFK started running well, Buescher won those three races, Brad started running really good, it's like it's there. The speed in the Fords are out there. These guys found it. What are we missing? We took that as a challenge.
These guys have figured out a way to make what we thought was an uncompetitive car winning cars. So we can't blame that anymore, so let's just go to work.
I didn't really ever have that thought in the summer months even when we were struggling, right? You try to do the best you can of giving information on where we need to be better, whether that's from an engine side, aero side, setup side. You just try to do the work. You understand that this sport you're going to be on top for a little while, then other team is going to find something, you're going to go to the bottom for a little while.
You have to keep working hard. That's what I love about this group, is they don't ever get down on themselves. They just do the work. They just figure it out. That's what we did.
So I never had a doubt. There were a lot of tough conversations, Hey, we got to do something or we're not going to be competitive at all in the Playoffs. Everyone jumped on the opportunity to dig down deep. That's what they did. Wound up here.
Q. What does this mean to the Blaney legacy? When you think about your family's past, championships they've accrued, now be part of that championship legacy, how cool is that for you?
RYAN BLANEY: It's fantastic. I mean, just coming from a racing family in general, right? Grandfather, Lou, winning a bunch of championships the Northeast. Dad being the Outlaw champion. Dale winning of the All-Star championship. Now for me to kind of add some asphalt into there is pretty good because that's what I grew up doing.
Just special. Growing up around the racetrack, watching Jimmie and Jeff, Tony, Mark Martin, I love those guys. I saw them win championships. I wanted to be that way. For it to come full circle is special. I couldn't think of a better spot of my family being there and them being able to witness it.
They are just as much a part of it as I am. Not only my dad, my mom sacrificed more than you could imagine to make sure I could get to every race and do what I needed to do to get going. I have two awesome sisters that support me. It's pretty special to have them here.
Q. You've been hounded in the past of asking you about trying to get through the Playoffs, the Round of 8 in particular. How nice is it to not have made this Championship 4 but to win a championship out of the way?
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, out of the way (smiling).
No, it's nice to make our first Final 4. Obviously that was the main goal this year, something we haven't done. To achieve that last week, it's like, Great, that's awesome, check that one off. It's just a double whammy that we get to come here and win the championship, as well.
Super proud of everybody. It all happened, gosh, like Chase and Kyle did the same thing, their first Champ 4 they won the championship? I think they did. It's nice to come here and be one for one. Hopefully we can continue to build off of that and be able to have more shots here at Phoenix where we can contend as well.
Q. Where do you feel like your place is now at Team Penske? Roger said I don't want to have 1-2-3-4 drivers in the pecking order. When you came into Team Penske, going against Joey and Brad, you were the third guy. Having a championship, where do you feel that puts you in this organization? Does that matter to you?
RYAN BLANEY: I don't really think it matters to me very much. Yeah, RP has always done an amazing job of there's not like a number one, number two, number three drivers, right? As a driver, when you're not winning as many races as Brad and Joey when I came into it, you feel like that, the number three driver, number two driver now. That's just like a personal, like, mindset that drivers get.
Now I think Joey has two, I have one. It's like, All right, still a half a percent down of him (smiling). No, I mean, we have a great group over there. Joey has been fantastic. Working with Austin is awesome. Harrison is fantastic, as well.
I just enjoy driving for amazing people like Team Penske folks and Mr. Penske, Walter, Bud Denker, Tim Cindric, Mike Nelson. It's just fun to be there. I couldn't really imagine myself anywhere else. They've been fantastic with me for over 10 years. Hopefully I get to spend another at least 10 more over there.
Q. I'll set you off with another Ross question. He also said that Ryan could run second and win the championship. He did it last year. He can do it again. So with everything that was at stake, what made you feel like you still had to get that position?
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I mean, the thing at the time was he was struggling, and the 5 is catching us. He's going to continue to struggle, and the 5 is going to be there before the race is over. I mean, that was my urgency. I can't have this guy back me up to the 5. That was my sense of urgency. I have to get in front of him so he doesn't back me up to the 5 who I'm racing.
Yeah, it's easy to say just run second. You never know if that thing goes green, then the 5 is there, then your championship is kind of dwindled away, so...
Q. Can you give us insight into who helps you find the chill in the cockpit? Who have you been working with? Who guided you to find that focus?
RYAN BLANEY: That's a good question. I don't know.
It was something we talked about a lot between me and Jonathan and internally with myself. Just trying to figure out, All right, it's not fun pointing out things that you do poorly, right? It's not pointing out flaws about yourself, but it's important to do to try to work on. Like you're bad here, you do a terrible job at this. It's hard admitting yourself to those things internally. If they're holding you back, you have to address those problems.
I think I kind of finally had, like, a realization that you got to really get better at this if you expect to go forward in your career. You have to do this. You have to be smarter during races. You have got to think about the bigger picture. It's not only about being fast, you have to evolve yourself to be a more well-rounded racer.
It was a lot of conversations with myself internally honestly. Yeah, I don't know, I think it gets easier as you get older. You kind of get more mature, just try to take things a little bit easier and be a little bit more thoughtful about how you approach things, so...
Q. You got out of the car and said you're not an emotional guy. Obviously that weight on you to win this championship... When does this really sink in? Is it safe to say this is the greatest moment of your racing career?
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I'm not a very emotional guy. I did tear up on the last lap a little bit in the helmet just thinking about a lot of stuff. I was a little sobbing baby on the radio after the race. I could barely speak. I was just thinking about everything, proud of everybody. It's been a long career in motorsports.
Yeah, I don't know. Kind of overcome with emotion. If you try to do something for a long time, you're overcome with it. It is just kind of part of it.
What was the second question?
Q. Is this the greatest moment of your career?
RYAN BLANEY: Oh, by far. I mean, this tops everything, right? This is what you dream of as a kid. This is what you strive for. This is what you run 35 races a year for. To get to this moment, have a championship, you have to run a perfect race to get it.
Yeah, definitely a huge moment not only me, everybody involved in it. It's way bigger than I am. I can't thank those folks enough for doing what they do.
Q. What makes Hassler such a good leader?
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I mean, Hassler has been fantastic. He's such a good guy. He and I's personalities are pretty similar. When Todd Gordon told me he was retiring after 2021, it's like, All right... They gave me a lot of leeway to pick who I wanted.
Jonathan, I had my eye on because he crew chiefed the 21 car for the last half of the year in '21. He did a great job, been around Penske for a long time.
He and I kind of went out one night and had dinner and just talked. I really enjoyed how our conversations went, our personalities meshed. I knew he was a smart guy. Being able to work with him through the winter of '21 into the new car, he's done a fantastic job.
He was an engineer, so it's hard to go from an engineering role straight into crew chiefing. You're managing and you're leading 15 guys. You're trying to keep them pumped up. Also thinking about setups with the injury, trying to pump up the pit crew guys, telling the mechanics what to do. That role is tough to jump into.
It took him a little while to kind of get comfortable with that. But this year it's kind of like what internally to myself last year of what I can do better, he and I had the talks of what can we both do better to make this more of a leadership role and for you to get more comfortable. He embraced it. He's been fantastic to our whole group.
Gosh, it's been fun to work with him. He's just an awesome guy and cool to have a really fun year with him.
Q. Can you take us through the nuts and bolts of the final run. What goes through your head in terms of setting your mind up, what you have to do in the last run?
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I mean, I was bummed we lost -- we didn't really have a bad pit stop. Those guys just had lightning-fast stops. Man, well, that kind of stinks. You immediately shift to, All right, this is the task. This is my new job. This is what we have to do.
I think getting around the 24 early was huge where I didn't have to pass two of 'em. Just let me set my sights on Kyle. I was able to get a pretty good run there, get to his outside when he got to the apron. He almost spun out getting to the apron, trying to not let me get to his bottom. I thought we were going to possibly wreck off of two. It was tight.
But no, just hard racing between two guys. I have a ton of respect for Kyle. So it's fun to race him for the championship like that. Obviously his pedigree in racing is massive, and his talent is endless. To be able to go toe to toe with him like that was pretty great.
Q. You said over the radio to Roger, Thanks for giving me a shot. What has that journey been like since you first got the call?
RYAN BLANEY: I look back over 10 years, how it kind of all came through. Would never have thought 10 years ago I'd be here today. Just was lucky to be able to have an opportunity to drive for a team like Team Penske and work with such great people from the Xfinity side to the Cup side, to be able to drive for the Wood Brothers for a couple years.
Honestly, I haven't said it, I'm ashamed of not saying it, Brad Keselowski was a huge piece of getting me in there, was a massive piece of driving their Xfinity program. I drove his Trucks for a couple years. Brad was a huge connecting piece with me being a part of the Penske group.
I can't thank him enough. It was a lot of fun seeing him after the race. He came to the stage. That meant a lot to me because, like I said, he's a huge part of my career. Yeah, you want to drive for amazing people, and I've been lucky to do that from Brad to the Wood Brothers to Penske. It's been a dream come true.
Q. Three straight runner-up finishes at Phoenix. Is that frustrating for you? Does this sort of make up for that?
RYAN BLANEY: I don't give a shit about running second three times (smiling). Not now. I don't care.
THE MODERATOR: Ryan, we will let you go on that one.
RYAN BLANEY: Thank you so much. Thank you, guys (laughter).
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