between Blaney and Newman<\/a> coming to the finish line on the frontstretch.<\/p>\n\u201cI kind of don\u2019t make the best move probably, not the right one, and end up not winning the race,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cThat one haunts me to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not making \u201cthe best move probably\u201d is an understatement, as Blaney tried to draft Newman in front of him, their bumpers locked, Newman went into the outside wall and then slid upside down in one of the scariest crashes Daytona has seen in a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so easy to like Monday (morning) quarterback the thing,\u201d the Team Penske driver said. \u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018Well, gosh, just do this right,\u2019 and I try not to be that way because it\u2019ll drive you insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newman wound up being hospitalized overnight but left the next day, sore but uninjured otherwise.<\/p>\n
Maybe The Third Time Will Eventually Be the Charm<\/p>\n
For the record, it was the second time Blaney finished second in the 500, having come up short to winner Kurt Busch in the 2017 edition of NASCAR\u2019s biggest race of each season. He does have one victory at DIS in the 2021 summer race there.<\/p>\n
What should Blaney have done differently?<\/p>\n
\u201cMake a different move at the end of the race, like choose a different option, like a different lane,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a split-second decision, that\u2019s why I try not to like go crazy thinking about that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Blaney has replayed that incident numerous times in his mind, he also refuses to let it get the best of him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to learn from it right away, like spend half an hour on it, figure out \u2018okay if you\u2019re in this spot again\u2019, think about this, do this, and then just move on from it. Because if I go to sleep thinking about it, I\u2019m never going to stop thinking about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I have to be over it that night, and then I can wake up the next day like it\u2019s a new week and let\u2019s just move on from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even though he\u2019s moved on from that fateful day, there\u2019s no doubt in Blaney\u2019s mind what would have happened if he had made a more precise move on Newman.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I would have just done this different, we would have won that race,\u201d he lamented. \u201cAll you can do is learn from it for the next time, and hopefully you make the right choice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Blaney is a pretty even-keel kind of guy. He rarely gets overly excited or upset. And on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":112481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-112480","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114958176381693178","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}