NASCAR MEDIA CONFERENCE

January 1, 1970

Ryan Blaney

Q. One spot short of the Championship 4 spot in Phoenix. Anything you could have done differently in the car to make it work?

RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I look back on that long run before the last yellow where William got by me. I just got loose, trying to work through that. My rear drive was fading quick. I tried to manage a lot in the beginning. Yeah, just was starting to fade.

I was trying to protect. Yeah, I mean, that's just two guys going for it. I don't blame him for taking that. I have kind of lost momentum. I would have done the same thing, to be honest with you. I knew it was going to be tight. I tried to crowd as much as I could.

I'm just proud of this whole 12 group. Appreciate discount Tire, Ford, Menards, everybody who puts a lot into our program. Starting where we did and making the ground up we made early was impressive. They gave me a great car and race trim, and getting the lead was great.

24 was just a little better than us at the end. I seemed to lose a little bit rear drive quicker than he did. He was able to keep it longer than me. That's how he got the lead.

Thought I got a good restart, the last one. Kind of entered up top, tried to carry speed, and he just motored right around me on the bottom. Pretty impressive.

Just proud of the effort. A shame we're not going to Phoenix as part of the Championship 4. We'll be doing the best we can to finish the year out strong.

But I'm just proud of, like I said, the 12 guys. They have gave 100% of what they had. That's all you can ask for. Wasn't quite enough tonight. We'll just move on.