Ryan Blaney didn’t need to win NASCAR’s season finale on Sunday at Phoenix Raceway to win his first Cup Series championship. And he didn’t. He just needed to finish before his other three title contenders, which he did, becoming a first-time NASCAR champ and delivering back-to-back titles to Team Penske.
From a family of racers, the 29 year old drove his No. 12 Team Penske Ford to a second-place finish at the one-mile desert track, coming up short behind race winner Ross Chastain.
But Blaney went home with the championship trophy and his first title in his eight full-time Cup seasons. He finished the season with three wins, including two checkered flags in the playoffs that helped propel him to the Championship 4 contenders.
For The Win spoke with Blaney on Wednesday about his emotional championship moment, the celebrations and the possibility of Josef Newgarden, his Team Penske teammate on the IndyCar side, getting a tattoo of the champ’s face.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
You're a third-generation racer, and now you're a NASCAR champion. How does it feel?
What a just unbelievable day, the whole weekend, really. Proud of the effort our whole group put in the whole year, but especially when it got close to playoff time. I feel like everyone really rose to the occasion and worked hard to get better and better, and they deserve it. And so it’s just nice to accomplish it.
Nice to win the championship for Roger Penske. He’s been such a big role model in my life and a person who gave me a shot when I was a kid. So it’s nice to give back, and that’s the best way to thank a car owner, I think.
Has it sunk in yet?
No, I don’t I don’t think so. I think each passing day, it gets a little bit better. But I haven’t been home since [last] Wednesday. I was out in Phoenix early. We went right from Phoenix to New York and I’m at the airport now about to fly home — finally. So I can sleep in my own bed tonight. But it’s been fun up here last couple of days. But I think when I get home, it’ll finally kind of sink in when I can decompress a little bit.
What post-race moment at Phoenix is going to stick with you?
I think my whole family and Victory Lane was great — my mom, dad, my two sisters were there. It was fun to share with [girlfriend] Gianna [Tulio]. Just amazing people in my life that have given me a lot of good memories and supported me along the way.
And then seeing your buddies in Victory Lane — Chase [Elliott] and Bubba Wallace, two guys that grew up racing with ever since I was a kid, to have their support there, all my team guys. I was trying to tell everybody Sunday night like, “Let’s just slow down. Everything’s happening fast. Try to appreciate it because it is something special that we accomplished as a group.”
Everyone gets around the new champion, Ryan Blaney. pic.twitter.com/mv0kwlw8Hn
— Mr Matthew CFB (@MrMatthew_CFB) November 5, 2023
At what point before the race ended did you realize you were going to win the championship? Were you focused on trying to win the race, or were you just looking to stay ahead of the other championship contenders?
I wanted to win the race really badly, and I think that would have been the best way to solidify it. But you’re wanting to win the race, but also you want to stay in front of the other three guys too. That’s what really matters. But the competitor in you — it’s super hard to just forget about not winning the race. We’re in this to drive as hard as we can every lap and give your all, and so I was wanting to do both. But that made for a good show.
I realized once we took the white flag, I figured we can make up one more lap around there and make it to the checkered, but you really don’t know until you cross the finish line at the very end. And yeah, that overcoming emotion, joy, was something that’s really hard to replicate.
Yeah, you were surprisingly emotional in that moment, and because you were so emotional right away after you cross the start-finish line. I have to believe that it was starting to hit you on that last lap.
The final lap moment Ryan @Blaney became a #NASCAR Cup CHAMPION! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/GwEtLZnnzs
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) November 5, 2023
It was. I actually started tearing up on the last lap, and then once I had to speak after the race was over on the radio, that’s when you get a little choked up. But yeah, like you said, I’m not very emotional guy. That’s pretty rare for me. But I think I just thought about all the people that helped me out along the way as ever since I was a kid. And there’s so many people involved. You just get grateful for those folks who give you shots and opportunities because they’re the ones who got you here, so it’s always nice to reminisce about that stuff. And that was the perfect time, and that’s what brought it out in me.
How do you keep that line straight when your eyes are tearing up and you know you've got less than a mile left on the track?
Oh, it’s not bad. It’s OK. I’ve been through worse, so a little bit a tear in the eye trying to run a lap, I can handle that.
A lot of support for you from Team Penske drivers in the IndyCar Series. Specifically, Josef Newgarden said he'd get a tattoo of your face if you won. What are the odds he actually follows through with that?
Lets talk numbers, what’s the diameter of this portrait of an 1800s president going to be? https://t.co/Uitoidm0jx
— Ryan Blaney (@Blaney) November 6, 2023
I was shocked when he sent me that text. I mean, the guy’s in Tokyo, he’s texting me. I don’t know if he was out that night. He texted me on a Wednesday afternoon, and so I think would be like midnight in Tokyo. I think it’s a 12-hour time difference. So he had to have had some liquid courage and sent that to me on Wednesday before the race and said he was gonna get a tattoo on my face if we won the championship, and I was pumped about that.
And he’s one of the first guys I texted, just a smiley face to that message he sent me. So I don’t know why he brought it to social media. I wasn’t gonna bring it to social media, but he did it first. So I think people are going to encourage him to do it. I feel good about it.
If it happens, would you like to see a clean-shaven portrait or your current full beard-and-mustache portrait?
Full beard. We won the championship, full beard, full mustache. I want my face. I sent him a picture. I sent him a reference photo. I was like, “How about this to base it off of?” But yeah, you gotta go full beard. 1800s U.S. president is what he called me, so that’s what I want.
Along with Newgarden, you've gotten support from other Penske IndyCar drivers, like Scott McLaughlin. What does it mean to have their support as teammates in a different racing discipline?
YRB!!!!! Proud of my boy and Team Penske! See you at the bar !!!! @Team_Penske @Blaney https://t.co/jsYTc2lB8o
— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin93) November 6, 2023
We’re all pretty good buddies. I’ve gotten to be good buddies with Scottie. Josef and I have been pals for a while. And, you know, we work under the same roof in North Carolina. The IndyCar shop and the NASCAR shop are in the same building, and it’s always fun to pop your head in there and see those guys and congratulate them on their successes. And they do the same for us.
We support each other. And I think that’s what’s neat about having a team that has different series across the states — you support each other and you watch all their stuff, and you want them to do well because then the whole organization is doing well. So we cheer each other on a lot. It was cool to have Scott McLaughlin out there on Sunday supporting me. That meant a lot.
What do you think it says about the sport that this was the youngest Championship 4 group ever, and last year was the youngest Championship 4 group before that?
I think it shows how healthy the sport is, that there’s a bunch of younger guys coming in that can compete for championships. And that shows longevity, and those folks being around the sport for a long time and someone to latch on to and become a fan of. So there’s still a lot of great drivers who are veterans who have been in for a long time.
It was just one of those years that four younger guys made it, but there’s a lot of competition no matter what age you are, and I think that’s what makes our sport super unique. But yeah, there is a big wave of younger guys coming in, and that’s just neat to be a part of.
Ten, 20 years from now, when people describe this championship run, describe your championship season and describe you as a champion, what kind of words do you hope they use?
Oh, I don’t know. Perseverance, determination, rising to the occasion. I feel like our team did that really well in not having the best of starts to a year but working hard to get where we needed to be when it came time to the playoffs. That’s just teams working hard all year. You see it pretty often in our sport: Teams rise and fall, and teams get hot at certain times and they can benefit the most from it. So I hope they say or group rose to the occasion really well when it mattered.
On a scale of one to 10, how jealous were you that Bubba Wallace got to meet actor Mark Hamill to reveal a Star Wars-themed paint scheme?
I was so jealous. It was through the roof. I could not think of a number high enough to say how jealous I was. The funny thing was, he told me that was happening months ago. He told me they were gonna do this collab with, I think, Columbia has a Star Wars line, so they wanted to do something like that.
And he told me he was like, “Oh, I’m gonna go meet Mark Hamill. We’re filming this thing.” This was like three months ago, and I was jealous then, and then I forgot about it. And then I saw the media before the weekend about it, and it made me jealous again. It was cool.
I’m trying to get his helmet from that race because it was painted like the Alliance fighter pilots and stuff like that. That or the fire suit. I’m trying to get one of those things. I think I deserve it. I think I can convince him like, “Hey, man, I won a championship. I think you should give me something.” So either the helmet or the fire suit I’m trying to get.
