TALLAGEGA, Ala. — Ryan Blaney finds himself 31 points below the cutline with two races remaining in the Round of 8 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

Fortunately for the 2023 champion those races are a tracks — Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway and Martinsville (Va.) Speedway — where Blaney has enjoyed success in recent years.

Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford cut a tire early in last week’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and thrust him into comeback mode for the final two races of the round.

Still, Blaney, who has thrived in must-win situations in past Playoffs, does not yet feel that desperation.

“It stinks where we are on points, but we’ve still got two races left and I don’t personally think we are in a must-win quite yet,” Blaney explained to the media on Wednesday. “At Talladega, you never know what can happen. You can go have a massive points day and be short of the win, but maybe a couple other guys don’t have as good of a points day and you go into Martinsville maybe in a spot where you could point your way in if you go have another good day short of winning.

“Our prep is really no different. It’s how do we try to be efficient through the stages and gather up all the stage points. That could change. Let’s say the first two stages don’t go our way and, alright, maybe now it’s a must-win type scenario. That might switch up a little bit, but as far as our prep this week, it’s kind of business as usual and try to go gather the most points we can and go try to figure out a way to win the race, so pretty similar.”

Blaney has confidence heading into this weekend at Talladega’s 2.66-mile track and the short track at Martinsville the week after that.

“I like the next two tracks, for sure. We’ve definitely had a great track record at those two, and I think we can go into either one of those and run well and hopefully compete for the win, but that’s kind of everywhere,” Blaney said.” I have so much faith in this team with the guys that I’ve got working around me and the level of trust in each other, I just love going to the races every single weekend.

“It’s definitely nice when you’re in that spot, so hopefully we can dig into some previous success and experiences that we’ve had and can lean on those the next two weeks and see what happens.”

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