Ryan Blaney scored his first win of the season on Sunday night at Nashville Superspeedway. This trip to victory lane came much later than he hoped, but it struck an interesting parallel to his championship season.
This win at Nashville Superspeedway came in the 14th race of the Cup Series season. The last time Blaney won the 14th race of the season was in 2023, the same year that he won the championship for the first time.
Back in 2023, Blaney captured the rain-postponed Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. This was his first points-paying win of the Gen 7 era, and it punched his ticket to the playoffs. He went on to win playoff races at Talladega Superspeedway and Martinsville Speedway before winning the championship.
Last season, Blaney won even later. He first reached victory lane at Iowa Speedway, which was the 17th race of the season. He then won at Pocono Raceway and Martinsville Speedway to reach the Championship 4 for the second consecutive season. He ended the year second in the standings behind teammate Joey Logano.
"It just kind of sets it all at ease, like 'Okay, we're in the playoffs,'" Blaney said about getting his first win of the season. "All that stuff is good. Nice to finally get the monkey off your back and win a race and then move on and go try to win more.
"So this is important. Obviously, I would have liked to have won a little earlier, and I feel like we've had great shots to do it, just didn't really happen for us. Yeah, it's really nice to finally get in Victory Lane and have that little sense of ease in your brain."
Winning in the 14th race of the season doesn't mean that Blaney will recreate the run from his championship season in 2023, but it does provide some comfort.
He knows that he will have a spot in the playoffs and will not necessarily have to stress about points, as he did in 2022 when he went winless in points-paying races and barely beat out Martin Truex Jr. for the final playoff spot.
Blaney is also the last driver in the Team Penske/Wood Brothers Racing lineup to lock up a spot in the playoffs with a win this season. He joined Texas winner Joey Logano, Talladega winner Austin Cindric, and Las Vegas winner Josh Berry.
"For the last couple years, we've struggled a little bit kind of getting going before the summer months, and I think we've figured it out, come the fall and things like that or late summer," Blaney said.
"But I thought we just fired off this year with tons of speed, and was really proud of their efforts over the winter for that and carrying over what we accomplished at the end of last year and bringing it bigger and better at the start of this year.
"So it's great to have everybody with a win and everybody locked in there, and hopefully we can just continue to rack it up. It's nice that we have all the speed, and all the teams are working very well together right now."