All across the Charlotte, N.C. area, and for more than just the many who make their living in the area's stock car racing industry, there is a constant, pervasive reminder as to who the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion is.
Go to a convenience store for a sports drink, and Ryan Blaney is there. His likeness, and his title, has been emblazoned on a limited edition collector's bottle of BodyArmor since the middle of the year. The bottle's artwork, which shows confetti falling on Blaney exulting in triumph with the word "CHAMPION" above his car, spells out plainly not only who he is as a NASCAR driver, but also what he's done.
Introducing our limited-edition @Blaney CHAMPION bottle 🏆 This is an exclusive bottle that is ONLY available at select retailers in Charlotte, Charleston, and other select cities (while supplies last).
— BODYARMOR (@DrinkBODYARMOR) April 29, 2024
Drop a 🏆 if you can’t wait to pick one up! pic.twitter.com/PPyIY2uzX0
Such mass marketplace placements are the opportunities availed to a champion, and availed to those select few who can claim that they are among the very best race car drivers in the world. And since last November, when he won his first NASCAR Cup Series championship at the end of a playoff run that saw him ride a six-race playoff tear to the Bill France Trophy, Ryan Blaney has had the chance to experience everything that goes with being a champion.
Speaking with CBS Sports before the start of the NASCAR playoffs this weekend in Atlanta, Blaney spoke about the experience of representing his sport as its champion, speaking of all that he has received and all that he has been tasked with doing with that status. Whether it be receiving a hero's welcome from local race fans at each track the first half of the year, to the responsibility of conducting himself as a champion would, to even getting to star in the Netflix series "NASCAR: Full Speed" and have his run to the title shown to a completely new audience.
For Blaney, certain parts of it have marked a sudden change, part vindication and part validation. After failing to advance from the Round of 8 in 2022, he had to confront mistakes he and his team had made preventing them from reaching their potential, all while listening to the narrative that he'd never made the Championship 4 in his career despite perennial playoff berths, and all manner of opinions as to exactly why that was.
"2022 was kind of a big eye-opener for me. We had a great shot to get to Phoenix and I made two mistakes in two races back-to-back, and that's what really knocked us out," Blaney told CBS Sports. "So I had to deal with that internally with myself like, 'What do I need to do to be a better racecar driver' and how can you improve your skillset and how you approach things. And then you have all the outside media like, 'Yeah, he can win races, but I don't think he can compete for championships' and all that.
"When you hear that stuff, it motivates you. It makes you want to be better and it makes you want to prove people wrong. So we just went to work within ourselves, our group and our team and myself, 'How do we take this next step,' 'How do you level up your game to be a championship-contending team and driver,' and things like that.
"I try to use the outside white noise you see every now and then as motivation. I feel like we definitely needed to prove ourselves, and I still have that same mindset. ... I feel like no matter how successful or unsuccessful you are, you're always trying to get more out of yourself and rewrite your career.
"I'm never satisfied. I always enjoy, good or bad, trying to be the best that you can be. Whether that's champion or not, you're always trying to take the next step."
The celebration has started, but it’s going to be a while before it ends. @Blaney | #Championship4 pic.twitter.com/WCGuquVGHh
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) November 6, 2023
That next step is to try and win back-to-back championships, something that hasn't been done in a longer time than it seems. Not since Jimmie Johnson won a record five-straight titles from 2006 to 2010 has there been a back-to-back Cup champion, thanks in part to an elimination-style playoff format introduced in 2014 that has never seen the same driver win two years in a row.
The chance to become the first is Blaney's greatest animating force -- "top of the list in my mind" -- in this year's playoffs. And that opportunity presents, perhaps, an even greater and more alluring glory than the fall of the championship confetti last November was.
"I feel like honestly, trying to get your second is more tantalizing than trying to get your first, for whatever reason," Blaney said. "I don't know why, I don't know the explanation, but I've been so much more hungry to try to win a second one than I was trying to get my first, if that makes any sense. Because you get a taste of that success and you get a taste of the championship, but you're greedy and you want seconds and thirds and things like that. I think it's even more on the top of our brains because you've done it.
"I think there's a big difference in believing you can do it and knowing you can do it because you've achieved it. Everyone believes they can do it, but until you actually know that you can do it and you've accomplished it, then you're like, 'Alright, it's solidified we have what it takes to do this -- let's do it again.' So I think you've got to get that feeling again, and once you have it you want to figure out how to get it back. And the only way to get it back is winning another title.
"So I think we're even more hungry as a group, and me as a driver, to do it again."
Whether or not he can do it again may come down to the sense that the other champion in the Blaney household -- his father Dave Blaney, who won the 1995 World of Outlaws championship before a long career as a journeyman NASCAR driver -- gets. One year ago, Blaney's father continually referenced "The Path" to him throughout the playoffs, a metaphorical vision that was realized at season's end by his son and his race team.
"The path is getting bigger."@Blaney's dad Dave was his motivational speaker throughout his playoff run. #NASCARAwards pic.twitter.com/b3CVd2L4KF
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) December 4, 2023
For Blaney, as the green flag gets set to fly on further and loftier ambitions than merely becoming a champion, that vision hasn't made itself manifest. Not yet, anyway.
"He hasn't given me the 'path' talk this year. I'm sure he's gearing up for a new one to fire me up and get me motivated," Blaney said. "It was awesome. Dad believed it the whole time.
"It's funny, because back in 2022 he didn't have the path talk. So it's not like the years prior he was talking about this path that he sees us on that we can do it. I think something just clicked in his head with how we were running last year and how he saw me and the team kind of go about things. He just thought it was all clicking at the right time, and he had this idea in his head and it was super neat for me.
"To have your Dad that you admired as a kid and still do see it and believe in it so much. Because my Dad is a pretty soft-spoken guy, and for him to be so passionate to be like, 'I can see it, it's here.' Then for us to achieve it, it's like, 'Man, Dad knew something. He had a feeling.' And I think that really kind of willed us to doing what we did.
"Hopefully he sees it again this year. We'll see."
