WATCH: Ryan Blaney calls out a reporter who credited luck for his Championship-4 entry with ‘Jimmie Johnson’s lucky horseshoe’ remark
Phoenix will mark Blaney’s first Cup finale race as a championship contender.
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Ryan Blaney (Via IMAGO)
Team Penske Racing Ryan Blaney secured his maiden NASCAR Cup Championship-4 race entry by winning the Martinsville Cup race on Sunday. It was his maiden short-track race win in the Cup and arguably one of the most significant wins of his career. He hopes to emulate his teammate Joey Logano’s 2022 triumph in November at Phoenix.
The 2023 season so far has been a roller coaster ride for Blaney. Despite promising consistency, he had to wait a bit longer to break his winless streak, and the underwhelming performance of Ford cars also hurt him. The clutch form he showed in the R-12 race at Talladega and last Sunday helped him to secure the spot in the finale.
During the post-race press conference, a reporter asked Blaney how much luck has played a part in his progression with the “You’ve found Jimmie Johnson’s Lucky Horseshoe?” remake. Barney wasn’t impressed with the comment and was quick to counter his argument by pointing out that his hardworking No:12 crew deserves the place.
What’s been lucky about it? I don’t think anything’s been lucky about it…. Yeah, there may be lucky moments, but I don’t think the horseshoe is really true at all. We’ve worked really hard to get to the point that we need to at speed, and our group has executed very good races, and they deserve to be here…
Blaney said, as shown in a YouTube video shared by Kenny Wallace.
Ryan Blaney insists that the Championship-4 entry is down to his team
Despite the struggles they have been tackling the whole season, the No:12 Ford Mustangs were race wins contenders in the latter half of the season. His team has done a commendable job in giving him competitive cars when it matters. He highlighted this execution from the team to answer why his progression was not because of luck.
You can interpret luck how you want but the performance side, you still have to bring fast race cars, race cars keep putting off to win and we’ve done that. So, I think that is the biggest thing apart or you know about our success is everyone’s done a good job of figuring out how to get better and where to be better and then applying it and having fast cars so yeah.
Blaney now has a bigger challenge to tackle at Phoenix, where he finished P2 last season. He hopes for a fast car for the race and all the luck. Winning back-to-back championships for Roger Penske will be something else.
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