While Ryan Blaney and William Byron race for a NASCAR Cup title, they share 1 huge fan
Ryan Blaney and William Byron are (pretty much) brothers-in-law and are two of the four drivers competing for a NASCAR Cup Series championship Sunday afternoon at Phoenix Raceway.
And of all the low-hanging possibilities, one question must be addressed:
What could possibly go wrong?
“At the end of the day, it’s kind of funny we’re both going for a championship,” Blaney said of Byron during Championship 4 availability Thursday in the Phoenix Raceway media center.
He then joked: “I told Erin (Blaney’s sister and Byron’s girlfriend): ‘You got the best percentage of anybody of someone you care about winning this thing. You got a better chance than all four of us sitting up here.’”
To be clear, Erin Blaney is not yet the wife of William Byron. Erin and William have been dating since February 2020, though, and the three are comfortable with the situation and enjoy poking fun at it — so much so that Byron, after Blaney’s win at Martinsville this past weekend, told the NBC broadcast: “Congrats to Ryan. Really happy for him, brother-in-law.”
There is always so much riding on the NASCAR Cup Series season finale. A champion is decided. Careers and legacies and lives are ripe for change. The sport takes stock of where it is and who its representatives are.
This is just another added stake — and a funny one at that, drivers agree.
“It is a funny dynamic,” Blaney said. “At the end of the day he and I still understand we’re both competitors, but we’re going to race each other with respect, too.”
The two drivers know each other well on-track, as well.
Blaney, 29, is a third-generation driver who has been in the Cup Series full-time since 2016. He’s had a largely up-and-down season — riding highs like that of an emotional win at Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Coca-Cola 600 and the lows that have come with being a Ford driver in 2023 — but is at the top of his game now. He won the race at Martinsville last week to secure his spot in Sunday’s championship, and many think he could be the driver to beat considering his past prowess at Phoenix Raceway.
Meanwhile, Byron, 25, has been in a Cup car since 2018. The Charlotte Country Day graduate got his chance, famously, after beginning in iRacing and has had a banner year with a series-best six wins. He is the only driver of Sunday’s Championship Four — which include Blaney, Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell — to not have clinched a spot in Sunday’s race with a win in the Round of 8, doing so by virtue of an admirable grit, staying in the race despite his helmet fan malfunctioning and almost passing out afterward.
In fact, Byron needed Blaney to prevent Denny Hamlin from winning Martinsville so Byron could advance in the playoffs. And he did.
“I’m sure she’ll be stressed,” Byron said of Erin on Thursday. “She doesn’t lead it on. She’s really good about just kind of hiding it. I think she’ll really be stressed during the race. It’s going to be fun. I think she’s excited.
“She’s excited for me. She was really happy that I got in, so it will be cool.”
