Here's why you shouldn't expect a burnout if Ryan Blaney wins the Coca-Cola 600
CONCORD, N.C. – Based on his fast practice times and the fact that he won Saturday’s XFINITY Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Ryan Blaney rates as one of the pre-race favorites heading into today’s 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, don’t expect a huge celebratory burnout.
For that matter, don’t expect a burnout at all.
Blaney didn’t do one after winning Saturday’s 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 NASCAR’s longest race. “Back in the day they didn’t 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. They’d even pick up a couple crew members on the way. I couldn’t find any of my crew members or else I would have picked them up.
“That’s 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 wasn’t the XFINITY Series, but that was pretty neat for my dad to win here. I remember watching that race … It’s definitely cool to win at a track my father did. It’s pretty cool,” Blaney said.
It seemed pretty cool for him to celebrate the old-school way his dad would have, too.
