{"id":20259,"date":"2018-07-13T17:09:08","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T22:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=20259"},"modified":"2018-07-13T17:09:08","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T22:09:08","slug":"ryan-blaney-tries-to-get-back-on-track-at-kentucky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/07\/13\/ryan-blaney-tries-to-get-back-on-track-at-kentucky\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Blaney tries to get back on track at Kentucky"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

For popular Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> driver Ryan Blaney<\/strong>, the strategy and season outlook isn\u2019t that complicated. After getting his breakthrough first career Cup win last season, the Team Penske driver has been an odds-on favorite to hoist another trophy \u2013 or two \u2013 this season and be a legitimate title contender when it comes playoff time.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ryan Blaney (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

But uncharacteristic issues have derailed strong expectations for the front-running team this summer and the 24-year-old has arrived at Kentucky Speedway for Saturday night\u2019s Quaker State 400 (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) ready to right the ship.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s visited Victory Lane at this 1.5-mile track before \u2013 scoring his first NASCAR Xfinity series win in 2013, then answering with his fourth career Xfinity triumph in 2015 \u2013 and now he\u2019s ready to celebrate a triumph here on NASCAR\u2019s grandest stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve enjoyed this race track, whether it was before it got repaved or now,\u2019\u2019 Blaney said Friday morning before Cup practice.<\/p>\n

And, he added, \u201cI feel like our team is pretty close to where it needs to be and I enjoy this place.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Three consecutive tough-luck outings in as many weeks may have others concerned about Blaney\u2019s No. 12 Ford team, but he remains confident and optimistic \u2013 always looking forward.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ryan Blaney (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI feel like our team is pretty close to where it needs to be and I enjoy this place,\u2019\u2019 Blaney said. \u201cI think our mile-and-a-half program has been pretty decent, we just need to take that next step and we\u2019re kind of closing the gap between a few other teams and, you know who the teams are.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Yes, Blaney has suffered through some tough luck in the last three races \u2013 a mechanical issue at the Sonoma, California, road course, a loose wheel at Chicagoland to being collected in an accident at Daytona last weekend. His 40th-place finish at Daytona International Speedway last Saturday night marked his worst outing of the season.<\/p>\n

But Blaney remains safely inside the playoff points standings. He was ranked among the top-five for the first seven races of the season, but has fallen to 11th after this rather uncharacteristic string of summer races. He\u2019s won two pole positions (at Las Vegas, and Pocono, where he scored his first career Cup win last year) and has eight top-10 finishes.<\/p>\n

Ryan Blaney Interview:<\/strong><\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/KYS_MENCS_Blaney_071318.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

There\u2019s no panic here. Just a real desire to get back on track.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a big points-looker guy,\u2019\u2019 Blaney said. \u201cI just go try and run the best I can and that stuff figures itself out, whether you win or run well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just have to stop having trouble. The last three weeks have been a bunch of problems for us, from breaking at Sonoma to having loose wheels at Chicago and then last week, getting in a wreck.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just stuff that can\u2019t happen. It almost takes the wind out of your sails when stuff like that happens. When it\u2019s really none of your doing and you get caught up in it, it\u2019s still kind of disappointing to everybody and everybody gets down.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to string together and trying to get back on track, especially before the Playoffs, hopefully. We can\u2019t have anymore trouble, but just run like I know our team can run \u2013 run up toward the front and try to bring fast cars every weekend, which we have, it\u2019s just a shame that hasn\u2019t shown up here the last few races.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service For popular Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Ryan Blaney, the strategy and season outlook isn\u2019t that complicated. After getting his breakthrough first career Cup win last season, the Team Penske driver has been an odds-on favorite to hoist another trophy \u2013 or two \u2013 this season and be a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18452,"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":[282,16,464,435],"class_list":["post-20259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-kentucky-speedway","tag-nascar","tag-quaker-state-400","tag-ryan-blaney"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/MENCS_Pocono1_Blaney_Practice_060118.jpg?fit=4164%2C2771&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5gL","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20259"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20262,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20259\/revisions\/20262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}