NASCAR insider laments Ryan Blaney's win overshadowed by Martinsville controversy

Ryan Blaney won the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Martinsville on Sunday, but his victory is not getting a lot of attention because of the controversy surrounding the race. On The Teardown podcast, NASCAR insider Jeff Gluck of The Athletic praised Blaney for winning despite the drama that happened on the final lap.

“What a performance, what a clutch big-time performance from Ryan Blaney,” Gluck said. “One week after it looked like he was going to be ruing the finish of Homestead for the entire offseason, a chance at his championship defense gone by making a mistake in the last corner and allowing Tyler Reddick to have the Highline. Everybody all week saying, ‘What were you thinking? What were you doing?’ He answered the questions on midweek Zoom. He went into detail, he didn’t run from it, didn’t hide from this mistake he made.

“Comes out at Martinsville in a must-week situation for him, no way to point your way in, and he gets it done to launch himself back in the Championship 4 giving Penske two drivers in the Championship 4. The last two most recent champions are in this race. Ryan Blaney gets it done.

Ryan Blaney reacts to winning Martinsville race

Ryan Blaney will have a chance to win consecutive Cup Series titles after winning it all last year. He joins Penske teammate Joey Logano, Reddick and William Byron in the race that will take place at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday.

“It was a week of, I don’t know, giving a race away at Homestead last week when it looked like we had a shot to get to Phoenix, definitely bummed us out on Sunday,” Blaney told reporters during his post-race press conference. “Our group did a great job of Monday morning we’re going to go back in and do our jobs and figure out what we need to do to win Martinsville. That’s the way this team operates. That’s why I’m really proud to be a part of this group.

“They just understand the next job, what’s the next task, what do we have to do next, then we go do it, or at least give our best effort into doing it. That’s all I can ask for from a team. Special to be a part of this group. Awesome to do it here tonight. We did it last year. Feel like it was definitely a little bit different last year because we weren’t in a must-win scenario. We just had to have a good day. Winning that one obviously was huge momentum.”