HAMPTON, Ga. — Ryan Blaney became the sixth different winner in as many races this NASCAR season when he took the checkered flag at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday. When reminded of this fact, he cracked a smile.
“Happy I’m one of ‘em!” Blaney said. “We got to five and I was like, ‘Whew. We’re stacking ‘em up pretty quick. I think we need to win one here.’”
A late-lap pass of Kyle Larson — as Larson’s lead faded with his tires — sent Blaney to Victory Lane for his fifth win in the Cup Series, allowing Blaney to breathe a sigh of relief, for now, along with five other race winners: Michael McDowell, Christopher Bell, William Byron, Larson and Martin Truex Jr.
Team Penske owner Roger Penske on Zoom Monday called Blaney’s win “so important” to boosting his organization’s momentum.
“To see Ryan be able to bring it home was terrific,” Penske said. “I think he needed that. He’d won plate races, but had never won on a mile or a mile and a half, where he’d have to grind it out with these guys.”
“I think this was a great win for him and (gives) a lot of confidence. I think we’ll see a lot of him this year,” Penske added.
Sunday’s race didn’t play out as others have so far this season. Larson led a majority of the laps (83%) and was among just six drivers who held the lead all afternoon. The 12 lead changes at Atlanta were a far cry from the 20 lead changes at Homestead, the 27 at Las Vegas and 23 at Phoenix, the other intermediate races completed so far this year.
Blaney and his No. 12 Ford team raced a clean event, posting fast pit stops and hovering in second place in the final stage until snaking the lead with fewer than 10 laps remaining, a trend in all of Blaney’s wins in the series. His victory didn’t come from out of left field, however. He finished fifth at Las Vegas, the last 1.5-mile track using the same rules package, and fourth at Atlanta last season. Still, the result was another fresh face taking the checkered flag early in the season.
“It just shows how many people can win in this series, in this sport,” Blaney said. “You have different winners from different organizations. I think that just shows how competitive it is.”
“I feel like everyone is doing a great job of figuring out ways to work with their crew chiefs and drivers and teams,” he said.
In 2014, the first year NASCAR implemented its 16-driver playoff format, seven different winners opened the season, but there have never been more winning drivers than the allotted spots with the format. This could be the first year, thanks to the trending parity across the field and newness of the 2021 schedule. The regular-season champion is guaranteed a spot in the playoffs, even without a win, and if there are more winners than playoff spots, those spots will be filled based on points during the regular season.
Blaney’s No. 12 crew chief Todd Gordon described how NASCAR’s technical inspection has changed this year to create a more evenly competitive field, whereas teams previously were able to “work around the optical scanner” to create more downforce.
“(NASCAR) tried to reel some of that creativity back in, made some templates that would address areas that they felt like we were losing control of,” Gordon said. “(NASCAR) made it very clear in the offseason this was going to happen and we all knew it.”
Gordon said that the result has been less downforce to create better racing, using Atlanta as an example where teams were “sliding around.” It has also leveled the competition, Gordon said. The industry’s preparation for the NextGen car rolling out next year, as well as limited track time for practice and qualifying during the pandemic, are also likely factors contributing to the more even playing field this year.
Penske said that teams haven’t seen the “creeping elegance” and significant changes in engineering this year, and like Gordon, noted that the garage area is being managed “much tighter.”
“Which quite honestly is good for everybody,” Penske said. “It’s a level playing field. And for me, it’s the same for us as it is for anybody else. I’m comfortable with what’s going on obviously. I can say that now that we have a race.”
When combined with the 2021 schedule, which includes multiple new tracks and formats, those changes should make for an interesting fall season of racing.
For example, while Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell are expected to command the Bristol dirt race next weekend, might Cup rookie Chase Briscoe be the next surprise win? His No. 14 team and the Stewart-Haas organization have missed it on the intermediate tracks so far, but with the entirely new element and Briscoe’s dirt experience, he could be the next first-time Cup winner after McDowell and Bell in the first two races.
“I’m ready to go dirt racing next week,” Briscoe tweeted Sunday after finishing 23rd at Atlanta.
Other drivers like Chris Buescher, Daniel Suárez and Matt DiBenedetto showed speed over the weekend and proved that they could be factors this season, in addition to Bubba Wallace possibly making a charge at a superspeedway. Those “surprise” wins wouldn’t necessarily negate wins by the perennial contenders either. Penske said he plans to have a productive conversation with drivers Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski regarding their run-in at the Daytona 500 that knocked both teams from the lead on the last lap of the race, and how to approach the next superspeedway race at Talladega.
“Those things happen,” Penske said. “Sometimes they happen for the best. It wasn’t the outcome we wanted but I think it brings that sort of subject to the surface and we deal with it professionally.”
Talladega follows the Bristol dirt race this weekend, where Penske didn’t express as much confidence based on his teams’ limited dirt experience. Still, the owner said he feels “good where we are.”
Other teams, such as Hendrick Motosports, should have early confidence based on the speed they’ve shown with Larson. Hendrick driver Chase Elliott also has six more races to win on a road course, and Alex Bowman finished third at Atlanta. Those drivers are likely to win at least one race of the next 20 before the playoffs.
Denny Hamlin, Logano, Keselowski and Kevin Harvick all rank in the top-10 in points and could also seemingly win any weekend, as well as Kurt and Kyle Busch. It’s hard to imagine at this point that any of those drivers won’t win a race before September, but after six different winners opened the season in a year with a revamped schedule, the question instead becomes can they win multiple races, and will they need to.
