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RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards\/Duracell Ford Mustang \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>WHAT DO YOU THINK IT WILL BE LIKE AT THE START OF THE RACE ON SUNDAY? “I think it\u2019s going to be a little tough jumping back into the swing of things after, I think I counted, 62 days off it will be and jumping in at probably the most difficult track that we go to and just lining up and racing, so that will be tough, but I feel like everyone will be pretty responsible getting going, being smart. Even though it\u2019s not a super-long race, you\u2019ve still got time to work on your car, especially at the competition caution. They\u2019re giving a lot of time to kind of make wholesale adjustments if you need them, so I feel like everyone will take it easy for the first little bit, but, honestly, the muscle memory of everybody is pretty good, so once you get one run in and things like that I think we\u2019ll be back to normal.”<\/p>\n WITHOUT PRACTICE OR QUALIFYING WILL THE START BE A DISADVANTAGE FOR YOU AND TOOD SINCE YOU\u2019RE STILL TRYING TO LEARN EACH OTHER? “Maybe a little bit. I feel like a lot of people will be at disadvantages, just having the type of track it\u2019s going to be, it\u2019s going to be a green race track, so the track will change a lot throughout the day. As far as me and Todd go, I feel like we\u2019ve communicated great right off the truck at every track this year the first run of practice and I just kind of look at it like that. It\u2019s just a little bit different scenario because we will be racing people, but at the end of the day you\u2019ve got to be able to quickly tell them what it\u2019s doing to go work on it, so I don\u2019t feel like it\u2019s anymore of a disadvantage for us than anybody else out there with no practice time.”<\/p>\n HOW DO YOU FEEL AS FAR AS THE PROCEDURES NASCAR HAS PUT IN PLACE WITH A TEMPERATURE TEST AND NO COVID-19 TEST? AND ARE YOU COMFORTABLE IF SOMEBODY GOT SICK THE SPORT COULD STILL GO ON? “That\u2019s a tough deal. NASCAR has been doing a good job of putting some pretty good procedures in place to make sure everyone is healthy before we even get into the race track, and then throughout the weekend in quarantining the crew, the spotters, the drivers, the over-the-wall guys. I think they\u2019ve done a pretty decent job at it. We\u2019ve got a call with them tomorrow about some final procedures that are going on, which I\u2019m looking forward to, but I feel confident in NASCAR. We have to be really careful and safe, and I feel like everyone has been doing the best that they can in making sure that you don\u2019t get sick and then expose other people, so I\u2019m confident in the procedures that they have put in place for us and, hopefully, everyone is healthy and nothing happens in that way.”<\/p>\n WHAT IS YOUR RACE DAY ROUTINE GOING TO BE LIKE? “I don\u2019t think it will be really any different, whether you\u2019re driving to the track being by yourself. My family sometimes come to them, but my procedure won\u2019t be any different. You just get in the car on race day and you drive to the track. The only thing different, obviously, is no practice or qualifying and not being able to go in the garage and not seeing all your guys. That\u2019s gonna be a little bit different. The first time I\u2019m gonna talk to them will be on the radio, so that will be a little bit different, but you\u2019ve got to take it in stride. You\u2019ve got to understand what they\u2019re trying to do and be safe, but as far as my routine goes it\u2019s gonna be different, but you try to make it as normal as possible in getting yourself ready to go.”<\/p>\n HOW MUCH COMMUNICATION HAVE YOU HAD WITH YOUR CREW CHIEF? “I\u2019ve been talking to Todd a good bit. We have a big group chat with all our team, trying to give everyone updates and see what everyone has been up to and how their families are doing and things like that, but we actually were able to go to the Ford sim last week. It was very cautious the way we did it. I felt like we did a good job of limiting people there and people in certain rooms, but it was nice to be able to talk to them in person from a distance for a little bit there at the Ford sim, but I think it\u2019s been fine. Obviously, it\u2019s different not being able to go into the race shop, a lot of people haven\u2019t been in the race shop in two months. I went to the shop yesterday to sit in my Darlington car and we did it outside and it was me and one other person. We were all facemasked up and making sure you were really safe, but I didn\u2019t step foot in the shop. That\u2019s the way they have it right now, so it\u2019s been a little odd but the communication has been the best it can be.”<\/p>\n ARE YOU CONCERNED OR DO YOU THINK OTHER DRIVERS ARE CONCERNED ABOUT ALL THE GOING BACK AND FORTH FROM DARLINGTON AND CHARLOTTE ABOUT SPREADING THE VIRUS? “I\u2019m not really concerned if we stay safe, if we\u2019ve been doing what we\u2019ve been doing these past two months of being kind of locked in and quarantined \u2013 just being smart about it. With the way it\u2019s gonna go on Sunday, I\u2019m gonna get to the race track that morning, sit in my motorhome, and then when it\u2019s time to go out there I\u2019m walking right to my car and when I\u2019m done I\u2019m walking right back. There\u2019s gonna be really limited contact and I feel like everyone is doing a lot of things to try to make sure everyone is safe, not only at the race track of testing everybody, but in our shop every day this past week. When guys go into our race shop they test them just to make sure that they\u2019re OK to be around a limited amount of people. I\u2019m not concerned. I feel like we\u2019re gonna do the best we can to try to make sure nothing spreads like that, but I don\u2019t think the back and forth should cause a huge issue because I think everyone is gonna be pretty separated in their cars, on their personal vehicles and things like that. You can only hope. That\u2019s what you hope for. At the end of the day, you just have to be smart about everything and be as safe as you can. NASCAR has been doing a good thing, I think, to keep it that way.”<\/p>\n WHERE ARE YOU NOW? YOU\u2019RE OUTSIDE AND IT LOOKS NICE. “I\u2019m in my yard. If I\u2019m in my house I don\u2019t have any reception, so I have to step outside whenever I do calls. I\u2019ve got the perfect quarantine setup. I\u2019ve got a decent amount of land over here north of Mooresville. My dog has been happy I\u2019ve been home a lot, but just trying to figure out new things. I\u2019ve been at dad\u2019s shop a little bit. He\u2019s got this new business building trailers that I\u2019ve been helping him out with. Around here I\u2019ve got a decent amount of acres, so it keeps me busy just doing different little projects and things like that. It\u2019s been the best that it can be, but it\u2019s been nice to finally count down the days here and weeks to finally get back racing. You miss your crew guys. That\u2019s your second family and I miss seeing all those guys and their families. It stinks. I won\u2019t be able to see half of them for a while, but it\u2019s the best you can be.”<\/p>\n WITH NO PRACTICE IT\u2019S GOING TO BE A CHALLENGE. DO YOU FEEL ANY EXTRA PRESSURE TO NOT MESS THIS OPPORTUNITY UP? “Like I said before, I think everybody is gonna be pretty cautious to make sure that doesn\u2019t happen. There are gonna be a lot of eyes on our sport and a lot of eyes that haven\u2019t watched our sport maybe before. I feel like it goes back to the iRacing deal and seeing all the people that maybe never watched or new eyes that haven\u2019t watched racing before or them watching the iRacing thing. I feel like when we\u2019re gonna come back we\u2019re one of the very, very few sports that are back and a lot of people are gonna be watching, so it\u2019s gonna be a really big day on Sunday to make sure we put on a good show, not do anything too bad like going into turn one and wrecking 20 cars. I feel like we\u2019re all professional enough not to do that. It\u2019s a long race. Everyone know what\u2019s at stake of making not only NASCAR look good, but making our sponsors look good as well. They\u2019re going through hard times just like everybody else with their companies, so it\u2019s really big that they\u2019ve stuck with everybody and it\u2019s really important to give them a good showing, too. There\u2019s always that possibility. That\u2019s the random factor where you never know what can happen, but I feel like at the same time all of us are going to be very courteous to one another, especially getting going, and making sure we don\u2019t do anything foolish early on to make it look really bad. But I have confidence in the whole field. They\u2019re all really good drivers and I think we\u2019ll be ready to put on a good show.”<\/p>\n WHAT CHALLENGES ARE THERE GOING INTO RACE MODE WITH NO PRACTICE OR QUALIFYING? “I think with all the simulation and technology we have nowadays, you go back and look at last year\u2019s setup and cars and things like that, it\u2019s the same package we ran last year so I feel like you can take that information and kind of transfer it over and say, \u2018OK, this is how we started the race. This is how we ended the race, so let\u2019s go somewhere in between.\u2019 Or what you think you\u2019re gonna go. Todd and my engineers have been working really hard on the sim stuff. Ever since we figured out Darlington was gonna be our first race they\u2019ve been working non-stop, really via the internet to kind of work on simulation and things like that. It\u2019s not like back 20 years ago when there really wasn\u2019t any of that, so I feel like you have a little bit better idea just from the technology side of kind of how you need to be. Now saying that, you could always be way off. You never know what could happen as far as your setups, your track temp or your tires or things like that, but I feel like you can get it fairly close \u2013 you would hope at least \u2013 just because of all the technology and all the work that those guys have and just looking back at previous races and data and things like that.”<\/p>\n WILL YOUR QUARANTINE BEARD AND MUSTACHE STILL BE AROUND ON SUNDAY OR HAS TEAM PENSKE RELAXED ITS RULES? “I was waiting on that. I was gonna give it a shot and I have a video with Advance Auto Parts today that me and my dad are doing. My dad specifically told me that if I had my moustache he would not do it, so I have to shave it. He said, \u2018I\u2019m not sitting next to my son, who looks 10 years older than me.\u2019 I was like, \u2018Well, I was just trying to make you look younger, dad.\u2019 He didn\u2019t buy that, so it will not be there, unfortunately. Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards\/Duracell Ford Mustang \u2013\u00a0WHAT DO YOU THINK IT WILL BE LIKE AT THE START OF THE RACE ON SUNDAY? “I think it\u2019s going to be a little tough jumping back into the swing of things after, I think I counted, 62 days off it will be and jumping in at probably […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[788],"tags":[180,560],"coauthors":[675],"class_list":{"0":"post-23819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-darlington-raceway","9":"tag-ryan-blaney"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23819"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}