Ryan Blaney may be sitting 31 points below the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs cutline, but the 2023 series champion is not one to hit the panic button.
Instead of rattling off statistics or leaning into pressure narratives, ahead of a date with Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, the Team Penske driver reached for inspiration from an unlikely and unforgettable source: “Macho Man” Randy Savage.
“I will go watch Randy Savage interviews, just because I think he was amazing. What was going through that man’s head? But that’s my favorite one. He keeps pulling out the creamer and [says], ‘Unjustifiably, in a position I’d rather not be in,'” Blaney said with a laugh during a Wednesday media teleconference. “‘But the cream will rise to the top,’ and I hope that’s what we can do this weekend.”
That blend of self-awareness and swagger sums up Blaney’s mindset as he heads into Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, a race equally known for chaos, carnage, and opportunity.
Blaney enters the second of three races in the Playoffs Round of 8 ranked eighth in the Playoff standings, following a disappointing crash and last-place finish at Las Vegas a weekend ago. A cut tire on Lap 71 sent him into the wall to end his day early, but the 31-year-old is refusing to let bad luck steer his hopes for a second championship off course.
“It stinks where we are on points, but we’ve still got two races left and I don’t personally think we are in a must-win quite yet,” Blaney said. “At Talladega, you never know what can happen. You can go have a massive points day and be short of the win, but maybe a couple other guys don’t have as good of a points day, and you go into Martinsville maybe in a spot where you could point your way in if you go have another good day short of winning.”
Blaney is banking on a steady approach to the race weekend and his past success at the 2.66-mile superspeedway. He’s a two-time winner at Talladega and is confident that his No. 12 team can capitalize on the unpredictability of the draft this weekend. But the pressure of the Playoffs is always lurking, especially at a track where one mistake, or someone else’s, can erase a season’s worth of work in mere seconds.
That’s where the mental side comes in.
“I think I used to overthink it, for sure,” Blaney admitted.
“I used to sit around late at night earlier in my life and just run through all these different scenarios and drive myself crazy of, ‘well, if this happens, that happens, and it can go downhill like this,’ it’s kind of a spiral,” Blaney continued, “so I think it’s a getting older type thing of, ‘hey, I can only control so much and let’s just try to do the best job we can at controlling what we can control,’ and the rest of it, good or bad, is gonna play itself out and you just hope the stars are aligned for you.”
That personal growth, Blaney says, is part of getting older and being more comfortable in his own process as one of the best race car drivers in the sport.
He’ll need that balance on Sunday at Talladega, a place where patience, instinct, and timing matter more than horsepower.
Win or lose, the driver of the No. 12 Ford is planning to channel his inner “Macho Man” again this weekend.
“I thought [Randy Savage quote] was the perfect comparison to my situation,” Blaney quipped, “so, thank you, Mr. Savage.”
The NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway is set for Sunday, October 19, and will be televised on NBC and can be streamed on HBO Max and Peacock (click here for full weekend TV schedule). The race broadcast is set to kick off at 2:00 PM ET. The Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the event.
