Roger Penske’s Indy Champion Is a Man of His Word as Ryan Blaney Approves of His Ultimate Honor

The 2023 NASCAR champion Ryan Blaney was not a big favorite for the title until his ground-shattering victory at Martinsville in the Round of 8. After that weekend, many fellow drivers had a lot at stake in the event of Blaney being champion. One particular driver from outside NASCAR did too.

Team Penske teammate and off-track friend Josef Newgarden had sent Blaney a text from Japan before the Phoenix finale, promising that he would get Blaney’s face tattooed on him if he gave their team a championship. Now, weeks after Blaney was crowned champion, Newgarden has kept his end of the promise.

Josef Newgarden keeps up his final-minute promise to Ryan Blaney

Josef Newgarden competes in the IndyCar series full-time for Team Penske. A champion of his own accord, he won the IndyCar series twice, in 2017 and 2019. Champion to champion, promises have now been kept. Sharing an image of Blaney’s tattoo on his thigh on Friday, Newgarden let the world know he is a man of his word.

Talking to Fox Sports and Bob Pockrass hours after he lifted the Cup Series trophy, Blaney said, “No idea [if he will follow through]. I was shocked. He’s in Japan, and he texted me that. It fired me up because that’s not like him. I forgot Newgarden bet a tattoo of my face, so we’ll see. We’ll see if he goes through with it.”

The IndyCar champion has after all followed through with it, and Blaney has expressed his approval by reposting the image. Newgarden has been a big fan of Team Penske in NASCAR and of Blaney. The duo are great friends outside work and this wager that they had is a proper reflection of that.

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Ryan Blaney’s banter with Josef Newgarden during the Phoenix race

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Though Josef Newgarden’s bet with Ryan Blaney could have very well ended up being an internal affair between them, the former put it out for the world to see on X. Blaney himself said to Pockrass that he wasn’t going to let anyone know of the wager, but Newgarden had put it out for the world to see. He’d also made fun of Blaney’s beard after the race tweeting, “.@Blaney with that beard looks like an 1800’s US president. I can’t look away. It’s magical, it’s so not Penske But that man is the champ!“

Now that Newgarden has a tattoo of Blaney on his thigh, the fandom has been going berserk in response to it. One fan rightly laughed, “This might be the best thing on the internet today!!”. Another couldn’t comprehend the idea of Newgarden going through with it as he wrote in awe, “Gotta be “fake” temp right?? That just insane! The team spirit at Penske is at complete overload lol these guys really like each other.” Well, Newgarden does like Blaney. That much is clear now.

Some fans were quite doubtful about the authenticity of the tattoo though. Comments following along the lines of “I dunno, man, that looks incredibly painted….”, questions were found creeping in. Time will answer if the tattoo is permanent or not if Newgarden himself doesn’t. Let’s wait to see what Blaney’s words of response to the tattoo will be!

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