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MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES: O'REILLY AUTO PARTS 500

April 9, 2017

Ryan Blaney

Fort Worth, Texas

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Ryan Blaney, driver of the No.21 motor craft quick lane tire and auto center Ford, finished 12th in today's O'Reilly Auto Parts 500. A career‑best finish here for Ryan at Texas Motor Speedway. You won the first two stages. Probably not the finish you wanted, but talk about your day and the track configuration and how it played out.
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I thought the start of our day was really strong. We made really good adjustments overnight and this morning to get our car where it needed to be. If you would have asked me if we would have been so good at the first two stages yesterday, I wouldn't have thought so, and that definitely means a lot. It teaches us a lot what we need to do as far as changes from practice to race. It definitely helped being up front, as well.
Once we got that caution before the second segment, a lot of guys pitted and there was a lot of mixed strategies, and we decided to try to win the segment, which I thought was important to get those point and an extra bonus point, and I thought we had enough of the race to go to try to work our way back up through there, and I think we got to eighth or something like that before the last caution, and I slid through our pit box, and that was an unfortunate deal. We were kind of pinned in between the 4 and the 88 and there was a weird angle and I just stopped a little deep, and I hurt us on that one for sure. But we just weren't able to pass anybody after that. No one really could do that. I would have liked to have seen it widen out a little bit more than it did today. I know if you tried to move up half a lane to a lane it wasn't really good, but hopefully in time that gets better and better.
Not a bad day for us. It's nice to win a couple segments, but I want to lead the last lap. That's the lap I care about, but I thought we made a big gain today as a team.

Q. Ryan, could you just talk about for you how important it is to win stages like that and put those points in the bank?
RYAN BLANEY: I think it's really helpful for everybody. Helps you for the playoffs. It helps you throughout the race. You know, that was 20 points we gained right there. It's just really, really helpful for your kind of long‑term outlook on things, and to go and hold the 4 and 78 off and then the 48 that last restart before segment 2, that showed how strong our car was. So it definitely means a lot to everybody I feel like, and it's nice to be a part of a couple stage wins with the 21 car. It means a lot.

Q. I want to say you've only led about 30, 35 laps in your whole Cup career, so to lead 140 something today, just how‑‑ does that do anything for you confidence‑wise? Does it do anything for the team confidence‑wise?
RYAN BLANEY: I think so. You know, we didn't finish where we wanted to by a long shot, but the positives you look at was how good our car was and how our adjustments were today. I thought our adjustments were really strong throughout the race. The track changed a little bit, so we were able to stay on top of that while we were out front. Yeah, it's definitely the most laps we've led. It's nice to start up front. It's a big product of starting up front, especially here at this racetrack the way it is now. But like I said, I don't care if we lead just one lap as long as it's the last one. We can lead 300 something. But we just weren't in position to have the right lap led today.

Q. That was kind of my question, but do you leave here feeling more encouraged than discouraged because of what you were able to do today and how well you ran?
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I think so. You know, like I said, it's not where you want to finish. We deserved to finish third at worst. I thought that was‑‑ our car was at its worst point was a third‑place car. You definitely think about that and are discouraged about that.
But at the same time you've got to look at the positives, and I think this is the most positive race we've ever had as a team, as a whole organization. This whole weekend has been pretty decent, and like I said, I thought we made big gains overnight of changing our race car where it needed to be to run up front, but I definitely think this is a big confidence boost for everybody, especially after last week at Martinsville, how it ended up.
I think this is a big help for everybody. You can't hold your head down about this one I don't think.

Q. In hindsight, do you perhaps wish that you had pitted before the end of that second stage rather than staying out because of what it cost you in track position?
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I mean, you can say that now. It's easy to look back on it and say, oh, we should have done this, should have done that. Now I say we should have stayed out the last caution and might have had a better shot at it. But you can't really change any of that now. Yeah, in hindsight, to answer your question, that was kind of a judgment call. You give up a stage win and 10 point and a bonus point for the playoffs to try to set yourself for the end of the race. We thought we had enough time after segment 2 to try to work our way back up through there, and a restart actually after segment 2 really went bad for us. We got jumbled up in 1 and 2 and let a lot of cars get by. That was kind of the deciding factor I feel like. I let a lot of good cars get by like the 48 and 42 and 24, and that hurt us more, I think, than anything was that restart after segment 2 when we had to check up big in 1 and 2. I thought we made the right call to stay out there and try to win that segment. I'm for that.

Q. Ryan, I was just curious after running so strong last weekend at Martinsville and running strong this weekend at Texas, even though it wasn't the finishes that you wanted, are you encouraged by the performances, especially moving forward to Bristol, Richmond, Talladega, and then Charlotte, and then also, did running the XFINITY race yesterday make you stronger today?
RYAN BLANEY: Yes, I feel like our past couple weeks, even though we haven't gotten the great finishes we deserve, I felt like our cars have been really, really fast. I thought it said a lot about our team and car last week to run good at Martinsville. The first half of the race where I'll publicly say it's my worst racetrack, and that's the racetrack I look forward to going to the least on the schedule, and to run well there, that definitely was a help, and then to have a fast car here has been really good. We're great in the first half of races, we just need to figure out how to finish them off, and that's tough part to do. That's where I think some of these great teams really rise up and can finish races and position themselves for the end of these races, and with this team, I feel like we're getting better at that. Fast cars definitely help, we just have to try to find ourselves in position to be up front towards the end and to have a fast enough car to try to compete for a win.

Q. I wanted to ask you what you were doing on your off week, and if you feel like this is kind of the best way to have an off week in terms of taking the momentum or how you did, if you feel more encouraged to have to think about this race for a couple weeks.
RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I forgot to answer the second part of the last question. The XFINITY race did help out a lot, running that yesterday. I definitely got done with that race and we had a meeting right after to figure out what we were going to do for today and changes, and we did a lot of things that our XFINITY car needed, and I felt like that helped out for today. So yeah, that was a big, big gain for us to run the XFINITY cars, so that was good.
What am I doing in my off week? I don't know. I don't like being at home, so I'll probably go somewhere and do something. I was going to go to London with Chase, and then he bailed, so that was nice. But he didn't want to go over there. I thought that would have been pretty neat to go. I've never been to London before.
I don't know, maybe go to Colorado or something or a friend of ours is playing a show in Knoxville, Tennessee. I've never been to Knoxville before, so I might go there. But led leading into the off week, are you encouraged? Yeah, it's encouraging to have really fast race cars and know that we can build off of this, so it's better than running 20th all day and wondering where everything went wrong. So I don't think it's a bad time to have an off week. Honestly, I wish we were racing next week just because you're in that mode and you want to go, go, go, but I think it might be nice for everyone to kind of wind down, and it's really good for the teams. They've been working super hard, and it's good for them to get an off week and spend a week with their family. But yeah.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you for stopping by. We appreciate it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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