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Ryan Blaney signed a multiyear contract extension last week, ensuring he will keep driving at Team Penske for the foreseeable (and maybe indefinite) future.
His facial hair did not secure similar legal protections.
“No, I just showed up with it at photos,” Blaney said with a laugh. “So there is no mustache clause in my contract.”
His bushy mustache, which would give 1970s-era Richard Petty a ruffian’s run for the money, has been spared the wrath of Roger Penske, whose racing teams have epitomized the clean-cut professionalism of pleated pants and starched shirts for six decades.
That is somewhat surprising.
But what’s even more surprising is how it also just seems to work.
The young Millennial with the “Star Wars” tattoos, scruffy visage and flowing locks?
He’s quintessential Penske Material, of course.
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When he signed with “The Captain” as an 18-year-old, no one was predicting that Blaney would become such a fixture with Penske, whose deep driver roster includes some of the biggest names in NASCAR and Indy 500 history.
But Blaney seems as much of a fit as Rusty Wallace, Rick Mears and Joey Logano became before him.
When the latest extension was announced, it was met with casual indifference, even though the 2023 Cup champion could be considered the best in a strong class of stars in contract years.
Because where else would he go, and why would Penske ever think to let him escape?
“It’s been a dream to be there as long as I have,” Blaney, 32, said. “It’s crazy to me that I’ve spent almost half of my life at that organization and with those people.
“Roger has let me be my own person. He’s just kind of let me be who I am, my own personality, and at the same time, I have respect for what that team is built for, obviously. I’ve probably pushed the limits a little bit years ago when I started the long hair and the playoff beard, but RP let me do it. He wanted me to be my own person.”
Penske himself has tended to scoff at the idea that his organization would have trouble assimilating a free spirit such as Blaney.
The first winner for Team Penske was the late Mark Donohue, an analytical engineer from Pennsylvania.
But the team also found room for hellraisers of varying degrees: Indy 500 winner Bobby Unser, Paul Tracy and Brad Keselowski, who liked joking that he turned Penske onto wearing jeans at race-track functions.
Teams can be adaptive for winners.
Rick Hendrick, whose Cup team also was a standard-bearer of decorum, likes to remind that he once employed the colorful Tim Richmond, one of the most charismatic personalities to grace NASCAR.
A marketing wonk once described Blaney as “the modern-day Tim Richmond,” but the branding belies Blaney’s commitment to being a responsible co-leader of such a storied organization.
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He and three-time Cup champion Joey Logano are in their ninth season as teammates — the longest-running NASCAR duo in Penske history.
Logano, currently in one of the worst slumps of his Cup career, recently said Blaney was the sport’s best driver.
“Those were really kind words from Joey,” Blaney said. “I really appreciate him speaking about me that way. That really means a lot. I’ve looked up to Joey for a long time. It’s been a pleasure to be his teammate and push each other every single week; I’ve learned a ton from him by just sitting down and having a conversation with how he approaches things.
“Joey is above and beyond the work ethic that he does and the talent level that he has. I think it’s very unfair that even though he’s had a rough month, that people are counting him out. He’s going to rally. That team is going to rally.”
That’s the message of a team leader, a position that Blaney began openly craving in 2021 when it came to light that Keselowski was leaving for team ownership.
Since then, Blaney has incrementally grown into the role.
He’s shown class this year in weathering pit crew struggles that have hamstrung his results almost weekly. Yet there have been hardly any emotional outbursts on the team radio from Blaney (the knock once was that his excitable nature during races underscored a lack of championship temperament).
He always has been a presence at the team’s shop in Mooresville, North Carolina, sometimes just to check out what’s happening with Indy 500 preparations.
“I’ve been lucky that Roger has let me do my process,” he said. “I kind of go about things a certain way, and he’s let me do that.”
The bottom line is that Blaney does what matters most to Roger Penske, a multibillionaire businessman who demands strong ties that keep sponsors and team members happy.
“That’s really all he cares about,” Blaney said. “Are you doing the work? Are you cordial with everybody? Are your partners happy? Do you have good relationships with them?
“I’ve been really lucky to have that while being able to maybe not (have) the Penske driver look. So I thank him for letting me be me. I’ve gone through a lot of looks with the too long hair, too big of a beard, the mustache, and he’s let me do it. I get jokes every now and then from him about it, especially when I started the playoff beard-type thing, but he’s just always joked about it.”
It’s easy to see why.
Regardless of his many looks, Blaney is the face of Team Penske.
