RELATED: Blaney to drive third Team Penske car in 2018
It's not a bad week to be Ryan Blaney.On Wednesday, he was named to drive a third Team Penske car starting in 2018 and coming up on Saturday he and his Wood Brothers Racing team return to Pocono Raceway, site of Blaney’s maiden Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win just a month ago.
The 23-year-old was clearly in fantastic spirits Wednesday doing media – Facebook Live, television and conference calls – to share the big news about his future. Clearly it’s sunny skies and mega potential ahead. And Blaney is the first to recognize his uniquely positive position.
"It's been special to be with two of the most iconic teams and owners in NASCAR," he said. "It's been pretty great to be a part of and get to know the history of each team, from the Wood Brothers to the Penske side. Not even on the NASCAR side with Mr. Penske, from the IndyCar side, even anything outside of motorsports, or the sports car side. It's been neat to know the bandwidth he’s had. Just to really get to know somebody like that is special to me.
"I've been really lucky to drive for two great teams and get to know some great families and great people along the way. Kind of growing up in the sport, I looked up to teams like this: the Wood Brothers and the Penske organization. To drive for them is definitely something that I would always want to do as a kid. It's really nice to be able to be in a spot to do that."
RELATED: Relive Blaney's Pocono win | Career stats for BlaneyThis weekend obviously presents a prime opportunity for Blaney. A win at the tricky Pocono 2.5-miler would give him the first season sweep of 2017 and earn his legendary team its 100th premier series victory.
Although Blaney insists, "I don't feel any different going into this race than last time.
"Just another racetrack. Maybe we have a little more confidence and brings back a lot of memories."
Certainly good memories that accompany a solid, fond future with this week's announcement.
"Obviously the main goal when I started was I wanted to drive in the Cup Series for Penske," Blaney shared. "That was my goal when I started in 2012 when I was just driving Brad's [Keselowski] truck. Obviously, that's the main goal ever since you're a kid.
MORE BLANEY: Check out his 'Glass Case of Emotion' podcast"Once you get to that level, I didn't really know what the timeline was going to be or what the plan was going to be. I just kind of went with what we would figure out year after year, whether it was driving Brad's trucks, in 2014 when I did Brad’s trucks full-time, or '15 when I did nothing full-time, I just did some partial schedule stuff, to full-time with the Wood Brothers the past few seasons."
"I just kind of went with everything," Blaney continued. "I knew that the plan was, you know, going to open up eventually. But I was just nice and thankful for the opportunities to get to drive for some great teams and meet some great people along the way.
"It's nice that it ended up kind of where it started, for sure. That definitely makes me feel good. But I don’t think ... there will be any difficulties really. The Wood Brothers, Penske group, we've worked really well together the past couple of years. Brad and Joey [Logano] and everybody on the Penske side pretty much already made me feel at home. Really, the whole Wood Brothers group makes them feel at home. I think that’s what makes our bond really strong. I don’t think really there will be any difficulty transferring to the Penske car full-time."
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