Kevin Harvick Brands Ryan Blaney With Ford’s Redeemer Tag After Leaving Behind a Lacklustre Start to the Season

At the beginning of the year, there was significant worry about how well the Ford cars would perform. Both Chevy and Toyota have been pushing boundaries, with their drivers winning races throughout the season. After Ryan Blaney‘s recent win at the Pocono Raceway, one thing has become clear: Ford is still in the race, and with a car in the playoffs, there is still hope for them to defend their Cup series championship.

Blaney’s performance at Pocono shows that he is ready to continue fighting, as this is his second victory after Iowa. While other Ford teams are struggling to keep up the pace, the No. 12 car for Team Penske is carrying the manufacturer this season. This has been noticed by Kevin Harvick, who had more than a few nice words for Blaney.

Ryan Blaney and Ford’s comeback into the 2024 season

With multiple Top 5 finishes this season, Blaney’s highs were high and his lows were low. Despite having 2 victories this year, starting off the year with a P30 at Daytona is not expected from the reigning champion. So when Kevin Harvick was speaking to Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith on NASCAR on FOX, the topic of Blaney’s shaky season came up.

That’s when Harvick said, “We spent the first part of the year worried about Ford. We did. We no longer need to worry about some of the Fords, prefacing that with some. And one of those Fords that we don’t need to worry about seems to be Ryan Blaney because they’ve been in contention, it seems, to win just about every race except for, I don’t even know which ones, but not many, over the last several weeks.”

Harvick discussed the strategy that Team Penske used as he explained, “They got to Victory Lane this week at Pocono by making a great call to leapfrog Denny Hamlin there at the end of the race with the way that their strategy worked out.”

The former NASCAR driver continued, “And as Ryan told us, that was one of the plans that they had laid out, but they had plenty of speed and were able to put themselves in the right track position when it counted to get the win at the end of the race.” The team had already strategized the race, and everything came together in round 3.

The team’s careful planning and Blaney’s perfect execution secured them the second win, which will help them walk into the playoffs with their heads held high. “So Jonathan and Ryan did a great job. They did great with everything except for the burnout, but we’ll talk about that later,” concluded Harvick. Victories always do feel special though, and Kevin Harvick just took this moment to shed light on one of his own experiences, which had a very similar feel to it like Ryan’s recent victory.

Kevin Harvick talks about his 2003 Brickyard win

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Further on in the podcast, Kevin Harvick shared his experience of winning the Brickyard 400 in 2003. He mentioned riding around the track with his wife, Delena, the crew chief, and the owner, Richard Childress, after the race. Harvick noted how all the Indy fans, trained in the tradition of staying back, hadn’t left, making it one of the coolest moments for them as they celebrated the victory before moving on to the post-race activities.

One of the standout memories for Harvick was Richard Childress keeping the car exactly as it was after the race, including the tire used for the burnout on the way to Victory Lane. Harvick remarked that this was probably one of the best burnouts ever. As a special gesture, Richard later gave the car to Harvick as a retirement gift, allowing him to keep the car from his first Brickyard 400 win.

Blaney’s recent win and burnout brought back memories from Kevin Harvick’s driving days, but as we head into the last 5 races before the playoffs, the question stands: which 16 drivers will go head-to-head to determine this year’s Cup series champion? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.