NASCAR
Who Enters Daytona with the Upper Hand: Ryan Blaney or Martin Truex Jr?
If Daytona sees a repeat winner Saturday night, one of the best drivers of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series will be left out of the Playoffs. Currently, Ryan Blaney holds a 25-point lead over Martin Truex Jr. heading into the regular season finale. These two drivers are duking it out for the final golden ticket for the championship fight. Do either of them have an advantage going to the high banks? Recent stats and history have this impending points battle surprisingly even. Let’s try and handicap the 400-mile fight for 16th Saturday night.
Ryan Blaney
Driver 12 is regarded as one of the best superspeedway racers in NASCAR today. Three of Ryan Blaney’s seven career victories have come on drafting tracks, including the Coke Zero Sugar 400 just 12 months ago. In 14 career Daytona starts, Blaney has six top-10s, including four of the last five trips to central Florida.
At this year’s Daytona 500, the 12 car was within a few hundred feet of a second-straight win. However, a big block thrown by Austin Cindric coming to the checkers sent Blaney into the wall, and back to fourth-place. Penske teammate power has been in command late in the last two Daytona 500s. Expect them to try and do everything possible to help Blaney win again. As the only driver with laps led in every superspeedway race of 2022, Blaney should be a favorite for Saturday’s victory.
Martin Truex Jr.
Historically not known as a great superspeedway racer, 2022 has been a year of anomalies for the 19. In February’s Daytona 500, Truex swept both Stages, eventually finishing 13th. At Talladega in April, Truex also came home fifth. Across both quasi-superspeedway races in Atlanta as well, MTJ was eighth and 11th. In 34 Daytona races, Truex has just five top-10s, most recently this race two years ago.
“Daytona is interesting,” Truex said. “It hasn’t been one of my better tracks, but I really enjoy going there. In the Daytona 500 this year, we had a really strong car and led laps, won the first two Stages and were feeling good about things. Then, we had an issue on pit road and had to go to the back and we were swept up in a crash. To me, the strategy at Daytona is to just try to stay up front as much as possible, or as close to the front as you can and hope that when the big crash happens, it’s behind you. That’s really the strategy; the only strategy is to try to stay up front. For us, as much of a wild card race as this is, I think we’ll have a good shot at winning and it’d be a great time to get our first superspeedway win with everything on the line. It’d be quite a story.”
25 points behind Blaney for the final Playoff spot, Truex is perhaps the only driver in the field who cares about Stage points. The 19 should try to repeat February’s performance, going for max points early. Truex has been surprisingly bad at several of his historically great tracks this year. On the flip side though, MTJ has shown great consistency on superspeedways, where he’s typically crash-prone. Maybe his breakthrough first win can come at a superspeedway. Much like Blaney, Truex will have several teammates who could help put the 19 ahead of the pack.
In conclusion, who enters Daytona on top? While Blaney is the better statistical driver at Daytona, Truex has flown under-the-radar all year on superspeedways. Between these two drivers battling and the chance of a new winner eliminating both of them, Daytona is sure to be chaos. Don’t miss a lap of the Coke Zero Sugar 400, Saturday at 7:00 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
Written by Peter Stratta
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Photo Credit to Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images for NASCAR
