Blaney: ‘I don’t know how friendly rivalries can be,’ spun Jones at Las Vegas
JOLIET, Ill. – With the XFINITY Series stand-alone event at Chicagoland Speedway being postponed a day due to rain, NASCAR Nation was treated to a preview of what the sport will be watching on the edge of its collective seat for years to come — a Sunday afternoon battle between Erik Jones and Ryan Blaney.
RELATED: Blaney blames himself for runner-up finish at Chicagoland
Two of NASCAR’s brightest gems in the making were thrust into the spotlight during the time slot typically reserved for Sprint Cup Series racing thanks to a dark week for stock car racing’s premier series and thunderstorms in the Joliet area on Saturday night (when the Owens Corning AttiCat 300 was scheduled to be run).
They did not disappoint.
In the two XFINITY cars most associated with their respective rival mentors Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski (the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry and the No. 22 Team Penske Ford Mustang) Jones and Blaney finished 1-2, combining to lead 137 of the race’s 200 laps.
The pair appears to be destined to be pitted against each other over the next decade, already having competed against one another in two of the three NASCAR national series tours and in late models — all before their combined age hit 40 years old. With each on the fast track to a full-time Sprint Cup ride in the near future (they’ve each made convincing starts at that level) it’s clear they both know their paths are going to cross for many years to come.
“(Ryan’s) definitely a guy that is one of the young guys that I’ve raced against quite a bit, especially for wins in the past. He’s a great, great competitor,” Jones said after taking his second victory of the weekend, the first coming Friday night at Iowa Speedway in the Camping World Truck Series. “He’s a lot of fun to race against. He’ll race you clean; he’ll race you hard. He doesn’t do anything that you don’t do to him.
“It’s really fun racing him; obviously we’ve had a couple of (battles) for the win together and I’m fine with a friendly rivalry any day, it just creates competition and it makes everybody better.”
Of course, it’s a lot easier to welcome a ‘friendly rivalry’ when you’re on the better half of it. In the six national series races in which they were both in the event and one of them ended up in Victory Lane, Jones was the one getting showered with confetti in four of them.
“I don’t know how friendly rivalries can be, but he does a good job,” Blaney smirked on pit road. “He’s been a good race car driver, obviously. He’s come along good. I raced with him in late models growing up. I’d like to say that I like racing with him, but he’s beaten us more times than I’ve beaten him. It’s fun racing with him. We had our run-in at Las Vegas and I thought we raced each other really good today. Just a good race car driver.
WATCH: Blaney sends Jones into the wall at Las Vegas
“Hopefully we’ll both be able to race on Sundays a lot here soon.”
If Sunday, June 21 was any indication, that’ll be the case very, very soon.