Conversation: Dave Blaney

BROOKLYN, Mich. -- At the beginning of the 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup season, Dave Blaney looked like he was on the verge of a career year in the No. 77 Jasper Ford.

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After five races, Blaney was a career best seventh in the point standings, had won his first Bud Pole and scored his best finish, third in the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 at Darlington Raceway.

Since then, the Jasper team's performance has leveled off, and Blaney is 24th in the championship after Sunday's Sirius 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

Blaney took a break from preparing for Michigan to sit down with NASCAR.com's Dave Rodman to discuss his son, Ryan's budding Quarter Midget racing career, the Penske/Jasper engine partnership and his own summer on dirt.

Has Ryan been wearing out the practice track back home?

Well, it's a real short little dirt track we built on the property, but we haven't been able to get on it hardly at all this spring and summer because it's been so wet around home, it never dries out.

We did a lot of practicing last summer and we're going to try to race him as much as we can this summer, within reason.

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How proud are you of how he's not only gravitated to racing, but has started off so successfully?

He is 2-for-2 since he ran his first race at Pocono, and even more special he's driving a car paint-schemed like your dad, Lou's No. 10 Sprint Car.

I feel like at that age, nine years old, you've got to start them kind of slow, not push them too much and see how they get it and run with it. It looks like some of it comes naturally to him, so that's good.

But then there's a lot of stuff to learn and dedicate yourself to. We'll see how that comes along. It's all up to the individual and how bad they want it.

How big a chore is it to not put him under too much pressure, or for you is it an opportunity to just unwind?

It really is a chance to spend some quality time with him. Anymore, kids today do different things. They're into video games or whatever, a lot of stuff my wife and I aren't really into.

This (racing) is something we can do together and if he enjoys it, that's great. I enjoy it if he does.

If he's into it and wants to do it and have fun with it, that's great. So far that seems to be the case. He wasn't really pumped up about it, and bugging me all the time to go do it (race). But when we started he got into it and wanted to succeed, not just have fun.

How enthused are you about the Penske/Jasper engine program, particularly the way they've successfully balanced doing both Ford and Dodge engines?

That engine shop is plenty capable of doing both. They've got lots of capable personnel and a lot of technology to fall back on. They're capable of handling that, no problem.

	Crew chief Robert Barker Credit: Autostock

At the beginning of the year you guys were going like gangbusters, but now you've kind of leveled off. What's up there?

Our team started off really good this year and we had some great runs right off the bat. Lately, we've been on a slide a little bit. We've been slumping and man, we're having a hard time grasping why and figuring out why we're off a little bit.

We're just trying to keep our attitudes good and get better.

Have you tried to correct whatever's wrong in tiny increments so you don't get too far off track?

I wish we knew, or I wish we could point at one thing as the reason why we're off and say, 'There it is.' But it's little things. We've been better on the banked race tracks for sure and we're trying to get a handle on why that's the case.

Man, it's tough. There's a lot of tough race teams out there and if you're a little bit off you're going to be in the back. You've got to be on your game every week.

What are the prospects for picking up through the middle stretch of the summer? You were steady at the road courses last year but the superspeedway program this year has been a little off.

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Yeah, we have qualified just awful at both speedway races and we really don't know why. All three Penske cars struggled qualifying at the speedway races last year.

They don't really put a lot of emphasis on the superspeedway motor stuff and that's OK. Come race time that doesn't seem like that's what wins you the race.

We've got new bodies on everything this year and actually totally new cars for us, so I can honestly say we probably don't put too much emphasis on the speedway cars or the speedway engines, but we do need to run better than we have.

Tony Stewart was pretty thrilled he won at Williams Grove a couple weeks ago. What's your tally on dirt against him this summer and what's your dirt racing schedule looking like?

I'm 0-for-1 after he won at Williams Grove. That was our first race this summer and he won and I run second. He got me on that one.

	Credit: Autostock

We were supposed to run at my track, Sharon Speedway, last Thursday and got rained out, so we pushed that back to August. We've got at least three more races scheduled this summer so I've got a chance to get even.

I guess just like everything else in racing this season, you took a hit at Sharon the other night when you and Tony Stewart were supposed to race. Talk a little about the special event you have scheduled then, with Kyle and Schrader.

The makeup date for Tony Stewart is on a Tuesday night in August -- that's just what fit the best into everyone's schedules, the speedway's, mine and his.

We're still going to have the Kyle Petty Night for his Victory Junction Camp on the Saturday night when we're at Michigan (in August). I'm going back and (Ken) Schrader's going back and we've got to get another guy or two to fill in as well, so we'll still have fun with that.

How special is it to support those charities that you do, like Zippy's Kids' group that the event with Tony was going to support, or the Victory Junction Camp?

It's a win-win situation all the way around. It's a good show for Sharon Speedway, and it helps the speedway with some notoriety there; it's great to be able to raise some awareness for their charities and raise some money as well.

And we get to go out and play on the dirt and have a little fun, so as far as I can see it's good all the way around.

Is the volatility and silliness of Winston Cup racing -- like what happened with John Andretti this week -- any kind of distraction to you, or do you simply focus on your own team and let that other stuff just swirl away?

I don't know if it's a distraction. It's just part of the game here. You've got to run well and you've got to perform; or you've got to have the potential to run well. It's all performance, so that part of it's always there.

There's lots of pressure because these owners have big investments and these sponsors have big investments so everybody expects a lot.