CONCORD, N.C. Based on his fast practice times and the fact that he won Saturdays XFINITY Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Ryan Blaney rates as one of the pre-race favorites heading into todays Coca-Cola 600 (5:30 p.m. ET on FOX).
But if he wins, which would give him his first victory in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, dont expect a huge celebratory burnout.
For that matter, dont expect a burnout at all.
Blaney didnt do one after winning Saturdays Hisense 300 and afterward, he was glad to explain why.
Everyone nowadays they go down and do big funky burnouts and tear their race cars up and burn the rear tires off of them and blow them out and ruin the motor, said Blaney, who will drive the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford today in NASCARs longest race. Back in the day they didnt do that.
They just kind of rolled down the frontstretch and turned around and waved to the fans and got the checkered flag and went to Victory Lane.Theyd even pick up a couple crew members on the way.I couldnt find any of my crew members or else I would have picked them up.
Thats how they used to do it.Personally to me, that is cooler than doing a big, smoky burnout and tearing up your race car and hurting the motor.That was kind of pre-planned.
And that is pure old-school. But what else would you expect from Blaney, who along with his father Dave Blaney became the first father-son duo to win an XFINITY race (or the equivalent thereof) at Charlotte on Saturday? His father won in what was then called the Busch Series at the 1.5-mile track in October of 2006 when Ryan was 12 years old.
Back then in 06 it wasnt the XFINITY Series, but that was pretty neat for my dad to win here.I remember watching that race Its definitely cool to win at a track my father did. Its pretty cool, Blaney said.
It seemed pretty cool for him to celebrate the old-school way his dad would have, too.
gallery:6 who can win the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte
John K Harrelson | John K Harrelson LAT Images www.latphoto.co.uk
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