Ryan Blaney’s victory Sunday night time at Iowa Speedway achieved greater than getting the No. 12 workforce again to victory lane.
It checked a field the reigning sequence champions have prioritized this season. Jonathan Hassler, Blaney’s crew chief, was fast to acknowledge this after the checkered flag within the Iowa Corn 350.
“Hey, we talked about being a workforce of the summer time,” Hassler stated. “We did it.”
Per the calendar, the summer time doesn’t formally begin till June 20. Blaney’s victory was June 16. However in NASCAR, the summer time stretch has at all times appeared to start after Memorial Day weekend when the game’s longest race, the Coca-Cola 600, goes into the books.
No matter whether or not summer time begins initially or the tip of June, it’s not a stretch Blaney and his workforce have loved. Final yr, Blaney had 4 top-10 finishes (three have been ninth-place outcomes) within the 12 races following the Coca-Cola 600 by way of the tip of the common season. In six of these races, Blaney completed twenty second or worse.
“For those who look again to final yr, we gained the Coke 600, had a good run at Gateway (St. Louis) after which I feel we had a month, month and a half of struggling to search out our manner,” Hassler defined. “It wasn’t till early in the midst of the primary spherical of the playoffs, someplace in there that we actually acquired issues rolling once more, and we needed to be higher earlier within the yr. We needed to enhance our highway course program. For those who take a look at final week at Sonoma, we’ve carried out that.
“That’s an enormous a part of the summer time. So, yeah, I’m excited with the place we’re at (now).”
Blaney jumped from twelfth within the championship standings to seventh along with his victory at Iowa. He’s led 222 laps within the final three races (which started the week after the Coca-Cola 600). It places him effectively above how he netted out in these 12 summer time races final yr when he led a mixed 112 laps.
“We didn’t have an important summer time final yr,” Blaney stated. “After Gateway final yr, we had like two months of simply not working good in any respect. No tempo. Not ending races. I needed to hear stuff from you all, all summer time that we sucked. And we did. We simply weren’t superb, and we have been making an attempt some stuff, however we mounted that.
“We talked about that in the course of the low season of, ‘Hey, let’s concentrate on these summer time months. Let’s not undergo that little dip like we did final yr. Simply make the most of the summer time months somewhat higher than what we did.’ That was cool that we have been capable of obtain that as a result of we labored actually onerous on that; tried to be higher at this level of the yr, at a greater time than final yr. So, hopefully that continues.”
The victory at Iowa was a very long time coming. Blaney carried the Ford banner early within the season, even main the purpose standings in March. However the velocity and consistency his workforce had stopped quick for one cause or one other of being adequate to win.
Sarcastically, the week after Blaney crashed out of the Coca-Cola 600, it was St. Louis the place it seemed prefer it was lastly going to come back collectively. Blaney was resulting in the white flag when he ran out of gas.
Sonoma Raceway (a seventh-place end) and Iowa (the win) are the primary back-to-back top-10 finishes Blaney has had since March. And after the tough manner Might ended, Blaney admitted the push by way of the summer time once more got here up in dialog.
“Yeah, it got here up after we had just a few unhealthy races in a row, acquired wrecked out, stuff like that,” he stated. “But it surely was primarily talks with our group, our complete workforce, about wanting ahead to being a summer time workforce. Each low season, you attempt to make things better: what did we not do effectively within the prior yr? That was one among them that we had a foul summer time and let’s attempt to repair that.
“How will we do this? How will we study faster to be extra aggressive by way of the summer time months? So, it’s good once you set targets like that as a workforce after which obtain them. That half is sweet.”
