{"id":24182,"date":"2019-03-15T21:37:33","date_gmt":"2019-03-16T02:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=24182"},"modified":"2019-03-15T21:42:45","modified_gmt":"2019-03-16T02:42:45","slug":"ryan-blaney-both-admires-and-envies-kyle-buschs-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/15\/ryan-blaney-both-admires-and-envies-kyle-buschs-talent\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Blaney both admires and envies Kyle Busch\u2019s talent"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

FONTANA, Calif. \u2013 The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> tour is on its West Coast Swing, where the oldest Major League Baseball park (Dodger Stadium) dates to 1962.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ryan Blaney, driver of the #12 MoneyLion Ford, practices for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway on March 8, 2019 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Daniel Shirey\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Nevertheless, the Green Monster reared its head during driver media sessions at Auto Club Speedway on Friday, when the subject of Kyle Busch\u2019s career milestone came up.<\/p>\n

And, no, we\u2019re not talking about Fenway Park. We\u2019re talking about the Green Monster in the colloquial sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt almost makes me mad how good he is,\u201d Ryan Blaney<\/strong><\/a> said of Busch, who has two chances this weekend to reach a combined 200 victories across NASCAR\u2019s three national series. \u201cAs a competitor, I don’t like seeing him win. It frustrates me how he is able to find a way to be better than everybody else a lot of weekends.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also makes Blaney jealous.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very smart at knowing what his car needs, and you see him (often) get so much better throughout the race. He knows what he needs as the race progresses, and that\u2019s a hard thing to do. He has figured it out\u2014him and (crew chief) Adam Stevens\u2014and it’s really impressive.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/MENCS_AutoClub_Blaney_031519.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u201cYou have to admire it. Even though I’m jealous of it. You have to admire it. He’s definitely up there with one of the greats, for sure, as race car drivers that will go down in history. So it\u2019s pretty neat to watch him do it, even though I would like to be in the same spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

With 52 wins in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, 94 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and 53 in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series\u2014the latter two of which are series records\u2014Busch comes to Fontana with 199 combined victories.<\/p>\n

Blaney has finished second to Busch five times, twice in the Xfinity Series and three times in the Gander Outdoors Truck Series. In particular, one of those second places sticks in Blaney\u2019s craw.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, Indianapolis 2015 in the Xfinity car,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cI passed him on the restart. Led the last, I think it was 23 to go \u2026 I led the last 22-and-a-half laps, and it was my mistake how he beat me.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that one I will always think about. Yeah, second five times to him. I didn\u2019t know that. It pisses me off even more. You have to appreciate what he\u2019s done. It\u2019s pretty spectacular.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FONTANA, Calif. \u2013 The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series tour is on its West Coast Swing, where the oldest Major League Baseball park (Dodger Stadium) dates to 1962. Nevertheless, the Green Monster reared its head during driver media sessions at Auto Club Speedway on Friday, when the subject of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":24029,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[401,399,16,435],"class_list":["post-24182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-auto-club-400","tag-auto-club-speedway","tag-nascar","tag-ryan-blaney"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/mencs_ism_blaneyprac1_030819.jpg?fit=1024%2C683","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6i2","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24182"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24212,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24182\/revisions\/24212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}