Ryan Blaney may be moving to Team Penske with a new car there, the No. 12, but a lot remains familiar.
Starting with crew chief Jeremy Bullins, who helped Blaney reach his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory in 2017 with Wood Brothers Racing, many of the team members also remain the same.
“We’ve mostly kept the same core group, which was good,” Blaney said during Tuesday’s test at Texas Motor Speedway. “A couple of them have already been a part of Team Penske, and we’ve moved them up from the Xfinity side or they were working in the shop and they came or we have one mechanic that has come from another team. I think they’re all working well together on our first test.”
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As part of the alliance between Team Penske and Wood Brothers, Blaney says he already worked well at the track with Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski.
“That’s what has given us some of our success and helped us learn a lot, that’s for sure,” Blaney said of working with the other Penske teams.
Adding a fourth team to the mix as he moves to the No. 12 Team Penske Ford and Paul Menard takes over piloting the Wood Brother’s No. 21 should be fairly seamless with benefit to all, Blaney says.
“The Wood Brothers group, Paul, all of them, is going to be the same as it was last year; just one more group and I think that’s going to make us stronger,” Blaney said. “Just a lot more opinions about things, so for me it’s not going to change much for me and my team. It’s really the same thing for meeting or information that we get, it was all already all there, which is great and it’s still going to be there.”
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Menard has 11 years of full time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series experience, the last seven with Richard Childress Racing, where he accumulated one race win and 17 top fives.
Blaney is building on a breakout sophomore season that extended to the playoffs and a ninth-place finish in the 2017 Monster Energy Series standings.