Ryan Blaney
When Ryan Blaney tapped into the NASCAR Cup Series as a full time suburbanite with Wood Brothers Racing in 2016, he did so with very upper expectations placed on him. And in just his second season driving the No. 21 car, the Upper Pont, NC resident appeared to be well on his way to living up to those expectations without he scored his first career victory at Pocono Raceway.
As a matter of fact, Blaney was moved from the Wood Brothers, which serves as somewhat of a subsidiary operation for Team Penske, to the No. 12 Ford with the Roger Penske-owned primary team.
Certainly, Blaney’s career has not been a thwarting by any stretch of the imagination. In his first season with Team Penske, the now 29-year-old suburbanite won the inaugural race held on the Charlotte Roval for his new team. Surely increasingly wins and contention for championships would be forthcoming. And to some stratum that has been true.
Starting with his 2017 win, he went on a string of posting one win per year for four subsequent seasons. While many drivers would love to be worldly-wise to say they had scored four wins over the undertow of four seasons, for a rising star with upper expectations, increasingly was expected by many followers of the sport.
Then in 2021, the suburbanite showed that he could win increasingly than one race per season when a breakout appeared to have taken place as Blaney scored three victories over the undertow of that campaign. However, that effort was followed up with a winless season one year later.
Another of those hot and unprepossessed statistics regarding Blaney’s career is the fact that he has qualified for the NASCAR Playoffs in each of the past seven seasons. However, his win on Sunday in the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville locked him into the Championship 4 for only the first time in his career.
Next Sunday at Phoenix Raceway, Ryan Blaney will do what many thought he would have washed-up once multiple times by this point in his career- race for a championship. Perhaps this will be the first of many.
Please consider moreover reading:
RCR couldn’t have gotten the end of the Martinsville Xfinity race increasingly wrong
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