Ryan Blaney relives how he won first NASCAR Cup race at the Charlotte Roval in 2018
Ryan Blaney never had a Here He Comes moment when he took the checkered flag at the first Roval 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2018. He had no comeback that turned a late lap into lore, no win-turned-wonder.
Instead, after a Jimmie Johnson and Martin Truex Jr. wreck on the final turn on the last lap, the first line about the winner that rang out of the NBC broadcasting booth personified a mind blown.
“But how about Ryan Blaney?” analyst Steve Letarte said, chortling. “Who knew?!”
Of the 12 playoff drivers left in the field heading into this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at the Roval, which will be whittled to eight after Sunday afternoon’s cut-off race, Blaney is the only one who hasn’t yet notched a win.
In the topsy-turvy 2022 season, can he finally get a win this weekend at the Roval?
There’s reason to think he could: He’s done it before.
“A lot of crazy ups and downs,” Blaney said of that first Roval race in a recent interview with The Charlotte Observer. He added, “I’d never won a race like that before.”
Blaney remembers a lot about that first Roval on the Cup Series. He particularly remembers the discussion about the racetrack’s course leading up to the race.
The Roval is a 17-turn, 2.28-mile course that mixes in the most challenging parts of road and oval courses (hence the name, “Roval”): There are stretches that you’d find at a normal speedway — but there are also tight right turns and chicanes and elevation changes and more.
“Honestly, I think all the drivers and teams were like, ‘What are we doing?’ at first, just because it was so out of the box at the time,” Blaney said. “I don’t think anyone — drivers, teams — had a great outlook on it beforehand.”
Truex Jr. said pre-race that the “drivers are a bit nervous.” Alex Bowman predicted there’d be a “lot of beating and banging, probably a lot of torn-up race cars and carnage.” Former NASCAR Cup Series star and current NBC broadcaster Jeff Burton told the Observer he “initially thought it was crazy” and actually met with Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus Smith “to tell him he shouldn’t do it.”
“We kind of went into it with a little bit of an open mind and were willing to learn, and I remember through practice, there were a lot of guys making mistakes,” Blaney said. “I made a couple mistakes in practice, kinda hurting our car. That backstretch chicane was pretty tricky.
“I hit the barrier one time, and we spent a long time fixing it going into the race, which was obviously still part of the playoffs then. You had to do everything you can to scratch and claw your way through to a decent day.”
The race began largely cleanly, with passing and possibility lurching around every turn and hill. But the most memorable parts of the race were the two wrecks at the end.
There was The Big One on Lap 103 (of a 109-lap race), where Brad Keselowski knocked into the wall on Turn 1 and collected half the field with him on his spin-out. And then there was a final wreck on the final turn on the final lap: Johnson, vying for the win, got tangled with leader Truex Jr., and ultimately spun both cars out. (The incident also eliminated seven-time Cup champion Johnson from the playoffs.)
The final beneficiary? The Team Penske driver in the No. 12 car, Blaney.
“I thought we did a great job of managing that race,” Blaney said. “We won a stage, put ourselves in a spot to kind of restart in the Top 10, and then they had that wreck into Turn 1 (The Big One), which moved us up a couple spots. And then we had a really good restart to get to third ... but we weren’t going to pass the 48 and the 78. They were too far away.
“And then they had their little deal in the last corner. And we were able to sneak through there.”
Blaney has been on both sides of luck in the 2022 NASCAR season. He’s had some tough luck — of the lose-a-tire-at-Bristol variety — but he’s also had enough good fortune: Despite getting collected in a Stage 1 wreck and barely making minimum speed at Daytona, a rain storm swooped in and thoroughly damaged the field, allowing Blaney to make up laps and sneak back in as the only driver in the playoff field without a win.
He’s been consistent in these playoffs, too. He’s notched three Top 10s — two of which were Top 5s — in five postseason races. Blaney is now second in points behind Chase Elliott, who snatched a win away from him at Talladega on the final lap last weekend.
But on that October Sunday in 2018, the person who benefited from final-lap drama was Blaney.
“First and second wrecking each other, and then winning — that was kind of an odd feeling at first,” Blaney said. “But overall we did a good job of putting ourselves in a spot to capitalize if something like that did happen.”
Since that first race, Blaney said that the Roval has become a tradition and has turned into an entertaining race that drivers “enjoy” running.
“It was one of those things where NASCAR, they take a risk on doing something new, and you don’t know if it’s going to be an absolute crap-shoot or a success,” Blaney said. “And it turned out to be a big success.”
Success for NASCAR, yes.
Success, too, for Blaney — a driver who on Sunday will be set on insuring his future by replicating the past.
This story was originally published October 6, 2022 at 12:04 PM.
