Ryan Blaney is keeping an optimistic view of things even though he’s been frustrated several times this season.
The Team Penske driver has been running well so far this Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series campaign. He enters Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway eighth in the point standings on the strength of three top five finishes in the opening seven races.
However despite leading 195 laps as well, Blaney remains winless and is more than disappointed with the zero in his wins column.
“There are moments you get frustrated at it,” Blaney said. “You just wish stuff would stop happening. We had that run there of really good finishes like we finished where we had been running.”
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Team Penske does have three victories this year but Blaney is the lone member of the stable without a trip to Victory Lane. He’s not letting that fact add any stress to his life.
“Yeah, you still hate to have a zero in that column even though it’s still really early in the year, but, no, the pressure thing I used to let get to me a handful of years ago and then it doesn’t help you, so you just try to stay pressure free no matter how good or bad things are or how things look, so, no, there’s no pressure just because (teammates) Brad (Keselowski) and Joey (Logano) have won,” Blaney said.
“You just try to focus on your deal and what you need to do to try to get your team in victory lane and help your teammates and your team the best you can, but you just try to overlook all that stuff and just focus.”
Blaney is aware he’s driving for one of the top teams in the sport and has had a very competitive car at his disposal most weeks all season. While he’s managing adding any undue pressure to the situation, he wants to capitalize on the opportunity as soon as possible.
“I mean, you want to rack them up as much as you can as quick as you can when you can, so that part kind of stinks sometimes, but I’d rather have fast cars and things happening when we’re in contention to win races than be running 15th and wondering, scratching our heads where the speed is at,” he said.
“They’re both frustrating, but I’d rather be in this position and you just keep having fast cars and running up front. You hope the problems stop and you hope you can figure out a way to try to pull through at the end of one of these races.”
Blaney will start third in Sunday’s Food City 500. He set the new track qualifying record in the second of three rounds in qualifying.
