Earlier this year on the “NASCAR on NBC podcast,” analyst Kyle Petty stirred up some controversy by comparing Ryan Blaney to Kasey Kahne.
“That’s the problem. If this Ryan Blaney … shows up for the rest of the year, you’re not going to beat him. But this Ryan Blaney has very rarely shown up two or three weeks in a row.” “If we can learn from past mistakes and have our cars fast and just not mess up, really … this could be a big shot in the arm for us,” Blaney said.
• If Blaney makes the championship race at Phoenix, he has four straight top-four finishes there . When Logano won the Phoenix race and the title last season, Blaney led 109 laps and felt he had a winning car. “It’s honestly just a massive fuel mileage race now,” he said. “Literally, the first stint of each stage everyone is just saving gas. I ran 50 percent throttle damn near the whole first stint of each stage just to save gas. I’m on pit road a less amount of time, take less gas and you jump the cars that are using more gas.