By Jerry Jordan, Editor
AVONDALE, Ariz. – A week ago, Ryan Blaney was on the outside looking in and needing a win at Martinsville Speedway to advance for a chance to defend his NASCAR Cup Series Championship. He parked his Ford Mustang Darkhorse in Victory Lane to get the chance but his crew chief, Jonathan Hassler, said their focus had been on advancing and now that they had done it, they were ill-prepared for the season finale in Arizona at Phoenix Raceway.
“About 15 percent,” Hassler told Kickin’ the Tires a week ago when asked how prepared they were to run for the championship.
A week removed from the clutch win, Paul Wolfe, Team Penske’s crew chief for Joey Logano, said they were able to help the No. 12 team and shared data to give them a baseline.
“Well, I think obviously that’s a better question for Hassler, but obviously we work very closely together, the 12 and the 22,” Wolfe said. “Hopefully, some of the work we were able to put in while he was still focusing on trying to get here, you know, helped those guys, and we continued that through practice today as we were trying to get reads on some things. We’ll go over everything this evening and hopefully tune up both of our cars for tomorrow’s qualifying.”
However much Blaney and Hassler were behind before they arrived at Phoenix Raceway, they made up for it during practice on Friday as the No. 12 sat atop the scoring tower with a 27.174-second lap at 132.480 mph.
When asked what it took, Hassler replied, “A lot of late nights. Several in a row before we had to get the car loaded up, but yeah, we were able to kind of study what that group (Logano’s team) had done and what the rest of the shop had sort of put together as a baseline and some information and put our own spin on it and unload with some good speed here today.
Blaney said not only does he have confidence they will be fast in the race but his team does, as well. In fact, he added he’s traditionally been pretty good at Phoenix Raceway.
“Yeah, I mean, every one of us is going to say we feel great about our chances and we think we’re the best group, as they should, right? Everyone needs to be confident in their team,” Blaney said. “Yeah, I can personally say about our group, I feel like we’ve been incredibly strong all year really. I mean, it doesn’t really show how great we’ve been really as a 12 team. It’s easy for me to see it, how they are operating. I feel like it has been just unbelievable.
“This place has been pretty good to us in the past.”
Blaney has eight Top 5 finishes at Phoenix Raceway and despite running fifth at the sprint race earlier this year, the three previous years, Blaney put together a string of runner-up finishes. He’s started on the pole three times and has led 431 laps.
And, of course, in 2023, Blaney drove away with the greatest championship in stock car racing.