blaneyyyyyy.jpg
USATSI

NASCAR has always been known for its drivers. Whether it's the name Petty, Earnhardt, Gordon, Elliott, Busch or Johnson, there have been generations of last names that have been synonymous with the sport over the years.

One name that's been around for years is Blaney. Dave Blaney was a talented driver back in the '80s and '90s that never saw his talent translate to Cup Series wins. However, years later his son Ryan Blaney has become one of the most popular drivers in racing. 

CBS Sports caught up with the NASCAR playoff driver to discuss a variety of topics, including his friendships with drivers like Bubba Wallace, Chase Elliott and Erik Jones. Here are the highlights of what he had to say. 

CBS Sports: From a racing side of things there's been no practice (because of the COVID-19 pandemic) and Team Penske seems to have no problem with that. You typically roll off with one of the best cars, why do you think that is?

Blaney: "That's been tough with no practice and just lining up and racing. That's been a little bit difficult especially because I'm working with a whole new group of guys this year. That's been really tough but I feel like why we've done a good job on starting these races in the ballpark is just preparation. That's preparation from Todd Gordon, my crew chief, to every guy and girl in the race shop. Engineers are doing some great research and making our cars fast. Looking at the previous races there within the past couple years and figuring out where to start and just having ideas. That really all stems from the race shop. Engineers, crew chiefs, just preparation. That's the biggest thing you can do nowadays because you can't work on your car throughout practice. That's a big part and I think Penske does a really good job with that.'

CBS Sports: It's really been paying off with the wins, but when you guys win you can't celebrate with the fans but at the same time you just ran a promotion where you can get the fans involved with BODYARMOR. They got to pick your paint scheme for the regular season finale at Daytona. Strawberry Banana is the winner. What are your thoughts on the whole promotion?

Blaney: "It's been unfortunate not being able to have fans, I mean it's been understandable. At some tracks we have been able to have some limited fans which has been nice. Unfortunately we can't really interact with them face to face but it's nice to see them and hear them before and after the race. But yeah, the Pick the Paint promotion we did with BODYARMOR was awesome. We were just trying to get fans involved in what they want to see in Daytona here for the regular season finale. Strawberry Banana won. I had a small feeling that it was gonna win, I know everybody, on Twitter, I saw a lot of strawberry bananas. I thought that car turned out pretty cool so it'll be interesting to see how it looks under the lights. It's a really bright car, it's a graffiti schemed car so it'll be pretty wacky but it'll definitely stand out, which is what we were going for."

CBS Sports: It looks like you're trying to boost your popularity by doing things like this. Do you think there's ever a chance that you'll beat Chase Elliott for the Most Popular Driver or is that his award until he retires?

Blaney: "Haha, man why you gotta put me in that spot? I don't know, I don't know! I don't know if I'll ever be able to. He's got a good fanbase. You know obviously Bill, his dad, had a great fanbase. I have a great fanbase as well but that's going to be tough to knock Chase off of that Most Popular Driver pedestal. Obviously a lot of people love him, he's a good friend of mine but I wouldn't mind trying to win that. We'll see, maybe down the road. Keep growing our fanbase and keep going. We'll see, that side of it is pretty tough but we've got a good fanbase. Maybe not as big as his but maybe one day, you never know. We'll see if we can dethrone him."

CBS Sports: With you, and Chase and all the guys you've come up through the ranks with. Do you ever pinch yourself racing on the top stage with all your friends?

Blaney: "It's cool you brought that up because myself and Chase, Bubba Wallace, Erik Jones and a couple other of these guys that are within their first five years of running in the Cup Series. We all grew up racing together at some point in our lives. We're all pretty similar in age. I remember growing up racing with Chase and then racing with Bubba, racing with Erik Jones. That part is awesome. You see these kids that you raced against when you were 10, 11, 12 years old and now you're racing on Sunday's, the ultimate goal of what you wanted to do when you were that young. So yeah it is neat, some of us always talk about it and look at it like man could you believe where we were 10-15 years ago? And now we're here. We've all made it and made it with really good teams and good homes. We've been very fortunate throughout our lives to get some cool opportunities and hopefully we can stick around and run on Sundays for a long long time but it is neat to race against the buddies of years that you ran with when you were really young. The probability of that happening is really low but it's cool that it happened."

CBS Sports: You mentioned Erik Jones. He doesn't have a ride as of right now for next season. Is that surprising to you?

Blaney: "You know it is surprising to me. Erik is obviously an incredible racer. He's won championships, won a lot of races, trucks, Xfinity, cup races. He's won some very big Cup races. That surprised me. I was a little surprised when that came out that he wasn't going to be driving the 20 car next year. I personally think he will get something with a great team because he deserves it. He's a really good driver, good guy and you don't get to where he's at by just lucking your way into it. He's won enough and he's shown that he's one of the best young drivers out there. So I was a little shocked but I think he's going to land on his feet. I think he's gonna get with a really good team."

NASCAR: Daytona 500
USATSI

CBS Sports: I do want to talk about your friendship with Bubba Wallace. He's been in a long relationship. Maybe a possible wedding coming up and maybe you'll be the best man. So I have to ask you, if you're the best man at Bubba Wallace's wedding what would you say?

Blaney: "Ha, I have no idea. I'd probably try to find some embarrassing story. I'll have to look back. I've known Bubba since we were 10-11 years old so I'm sure there's something. I have to think deep in my memory bank of an embarrassing story I could tell at his wedding. We've been friends for 15 years like I said. He's a great guy, great racer. I'm happy that he's gotten these good opportunities as of late. The DoorDash deal has been really cool when that came out. I think that's really going to help him out in his career whether it's with Richard Petty Motorsports or somewhere else if he ends up there. But I don't know, I'll have to think about it when the news comes out, if the news comes out. I'm not saying, I have no idea if he's getting married anytime soon but if he does and I am in that position I'll definitely have to give a very good speech."

CBS Sports: Bubba has been building a reputation for himself on and off the track this season. Sticking strictly on the track, is there any driver with a negative reputation that might be a little bit unfair? 

Blaney: "I think everyone has their moments right? Every athlete in any sport has their moments of what people judge as a bad moment, maybe an overheated moment that can look wrong. Whether it's a basketball player getting in a fight or a really hard foul, or a football player with a cheap shot, or a racecar driver accidentally wrecking somebody or turning somebody. I feel like everybody has that. So it's hard for me to kind of pick out one driver because we've all been there. I've been ridiculed and hated for a mistake you make. Other drivers have been judged by a mistake you're making. A lot of them are unintentional, some of them are intentional. One that jumps out to me is Kyle Busch gets a pretty bad rep. He's a great racecar driver and he's aggressive but at the end of the day I feel like he gets a little bit more hate than he should but that's one that might pop out to me. It's hard to kind of judge a person. You just really kind of pick out the bad things that they do and it's hard for people because people love hearing about the bad things, about other people and they don't really focus on the good things that person does. The successful things. It's always the negative. Some people might have more negatives than others and people kind of dwell on that. I feel like he gets a bad rep that's really not, I think it's overblown for what it truly is."

CBS Sports: Reputations are made in the Xfinity Series. I don't know how much you've been able to watch the Xfinity Series this year but I'm curious what do you make of that whole series right now? 

Blaney: "I think the trucks and the Xfinity Series and even the ARCA series there's a lot of great talents coming up. A lot of young kids in great equipment that are coming up and trying to make a name for themselves. That's what those series are for. It's what you've gotta run to build a name for yourself for a Cup owner to recognize you. You have to be aggressive and you have to show that you can compete at this level. There's a lot of great talent. Austin Cindric is really good. Chase Briscoe is a great driver. Then you've got some of the new guys. Harrison Burton is another great one. Then you got some of the older guys, veterans, you could say like Justin Allgaier is in it. He's a guy that runs really competitive every single week. I feel like it's a cool mixture of that stuff but I think that's a good series. I've had the opportunity to come up through those series, so it was a little bit different when I was coming up because a lot of the Cup regulars were running that series and there was really no limitations on the amount of races you could run. Nowadays a Cup driver can only run five Xfinity races a year. So I personally liked when the Cup drivers would come down and race with us just because it taught me a lot because that's your goal right? Your goal is to race with those guys on Sundays so if you're not racing with them a lot of the weekend you can't really tell what your skill level is because you're racing with everyone in that series. I think it's a good series. I enjoy watching it and I think there's a lot of great drivers there. Hopefully they have great futures."

CBS Sports: Your dad Dave Blaney was a good driver. He's also a big Ohio State Buckeyes fan. They call him the Buckeye Bullet. What do you think about the Big Ten cancelling football this fall?

Blaney: "It's unfortunate, obviously I'm a buckeye fan myself. That sucks. It sucks seeing it, hearing the news about it. You know I can see the hesitation right, on wanting to play because you look at football, especially college football, and there's a lot of college teams out there. That's a huge in-your-face, contact sport right? It's a lot different than ours to where we're pretty secluded. We're not sweating in each others faces and things like that the whole game. So that stuff to me, the basketball and football, that's really difficult. NBA has done an amazing job I thought with creating that bubble to protect everybody and make it safe but I was bummed that the Big Ten announced that they weren't going to play. I hope that things clear up and they'll be able to play but it was definitely a bummer when I heard the Buckeyes wouldn't compete this year.