Yes, upon getting home Sunday night after losing the lead to Tyler Reddick in the final corner at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Ryan Blaney watched the race all the way to the end.
“Lost some sleep over the end of that race,” Blaney told reporters Wednesday.
But no, he is not letting that finish take up too much of his focus heading into this weekend at Martinsville Speedway.
Sunday’s race (2 p.m. ET on NBC) is Blaney’s final chance to reach the championship race and defend his series title. Blaney is one of six drivers vying for the final two spots in the title race. He is 38 points out of the final transfer spot, all but putting him in a must-win situation Sunday.
Blaney won this race a year ago and carried that momentum over to a runner-up finish at Phoenix that earned him his first Cup crown.
Blaney was in position last weekend at Homestead to earn a spot in the Championship 4, leading the field when the white flag waved. Reddick rallied from third and passed Blaney in Turn 4 for the win.
Blaney said he understands those who question why he didn’t block the high line and keep Reddick from shooting by there.
“It’s so easy to go back and watch it from the broadcast or relive it in your head (and go), ‘Gosh, if I would have done this different, it would have been a different outcome,’” Blaney said. “That’s easy to do. In the moment, it’s really hard to make the right decision. You’re making decisions every lap.
“I look back on that, I talk about in some scenarios whether it’s speedways or any of these races, whether you’re leading or you’re second, you’re guessing in some situations what lane is going to be better, where the car in front of you is going to go, where the car behind is going to go. You’re guessing.
“Sometimes you guess right and sometimes you guess wrong. Really, in that scenario, I guessed wrong of where (Reddick) was going to go. I wish I would have done something different the whole last lap.
“I didn’t get through (Turns) 1 and 2 very good. It started there. I didn’t get to the right lane in (Turns) 3 and 4. I just guessed wrong of what he was going to do and he did a a great job of kind of going where I wasn’t and carrying just a ton of entry speed to get there. It stuck for him.
“ … I try not to lose my mind over that stuff, even though it’s hard and it’s difficult to accept you losing a race like that on the last corner. You just try to put that in the memory bank of if you’re in that scenario again, maybe do something different.”
The Homestead finish marked the third time this year that Blaney has lost the lead of a race within the final two laps.
He lost the lead on the final lap to Daniel Suarez at Atlanta in late February. Suarez beat Blaney by .003 seconds.
Blaney led when he ran out of fuel and was passed by teammate Austin Cindric just before taking the white flag at Gateway in June.
Then came the Homestead finish.
So how has he learned to deal with those disappointments?
“I’ve just tried to move on from them quicker,” Blaney said. “I feel like it gets easier as you get older and you are in those scenarios more. You’re going to lose races that you feel like you should have won. Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve deals. If it’s a situation like Gateway, we talk about, ‘Hey what would we have done different or what are the mistakes we made?’
“Same as Homestead. What could I have done different. That was purely on me just making the wrong decisions at the end of that race and ‘Hey, how do you learn from it? And put it in the back of your head and then you just move on. What’s the next job? We can’t do anything about it now. I used to stew over that stuff a long time when I was younger, and I’ve just learned to let it go after you learn (from it).
“You can’t just throw it out the window right after that. You’ve got to learn from that stuff. So I try to do that and then just (go) ‘OK, what’s our new job?’ and full focus on that. I feel our group does that really well as the 12 team. Those things sting, but you can’t just tear your mind apart thinking about it over and over, especially when we have a massive race coming up this weekend.”
