Ryan Blaney earns his 1st career NASCAR championship, gives Roger Penske back-to-back Cup titles

Ryan Blaney raced to his first career NASCAR championship on Sunday by banging his way past contender Kyle Larson in closing laps at Phoenix Raceway to give Team Penske back-to-back Cup titles.

third generation racer is first Ohio-born driver to win Cup title and followed teammate Joey Loga, who won for Roger Penske a year ago. It was an amazing finish for Ford Performance, which struggled most of season but came on late with Blaney, who won two of final six playoff races.

Ford wound up sweeping championship weekend with titles from Ben Rhodes in Truck Series and Cole Custer in Xfinity Series. It was first manufacturer championship sweep since 2001, and Ford is only second manufacturer to do it. Chevrolet did it five different times.

title was fourth in Cup Series for Penske, but first time “ Captain” has consecutive Cups. His IndyCar program won back-to-back championships in 2016 and 2017 with Simon Pnaud and Josef Newgarden and Penske has 44 total championships across motorsports.

“What a year,” a tearful Blaney said after finishing second to Ross Chastain. “Congrats, RP. Thanks for giving me a shot.”

He n ted how important it was to win for Penske; 86-year-old was recently hospitalized with shingles and missed Blaney’s win at Martinsville Speedway last Sunday. Penske was in Phoenix and calmly watched race from a suite, but made his way to frontstretch to congratulate his 29-year-old driver.

Blaney has driven for Penske since 2013, when he was 19 years old.

“It was definitely on my mind to give him consecutive titles, I mean, because he’s done everything in motorsports and we had a chance to go back-to-back on Cup side with him,” Blaney said. “I mean, we couldn’t pass up that opportunity. So everyone worked really hard to make it happen and I’m so proud of effort.”

Blaney is son of former Cup driver Dave Blaney, who made 473 Cup starts over 17 seasons. Dave Blaney was a World of Outlaws champion, his bror, Dale, was a sprint car champion, and ir far, Lou, was credited with multiple Midwest titles.

“Obviously I come from a family of racers, my grandfar, dad and uncle,” Blaney said. “Dad is obviously who I grew up watching and admiring, wanted to be like. To be able to do what he did, ’cause as a kid I just wanted to do what dad did, so to be able to race and let alone compete for wins and championships, still have my parents around, people that you look up to that are still around, it makes it even more special.”

Chastain won race in a Chevrolet for Trackhouse Racing and is first driver to win season finale while t racing for championship since Denny Hamlin in 2013, one year before this current elimination format began.

“I am beside myself that we were able to do that,” Chastain said. “Everybody came up with a way to make this thing turn, and we drove off into sunset.”

Larson and William Byron finished third and fourth for Hendrick Motorsports, while Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing finished last in 36-car field with a broken brake rotor. y were only four drivers eligible for title Sunday and championship was guaranteed to highest finisher of group.

Kevin Harvick finished seventh in final race of his Cup career.

Blaney had to earn win as he was clearly racing for victory and went hard after Chastain, even growing anyed with how hard rival Chevy driver was racing a title contender. With 53 laps remaining, Blaney ran into back of Chastain, which allowed Larson to get past Blaney.

Blaney was furious on his radio and mess was delivered to Byron, who dates Blaney’s youngest sister, Erin.

“ 12 is melting down,” Byron was told over radio. Byron, who won a Cup Series high six races this year, started from pole and led 96 laps early.

“Once track rubbered in, we got really tight. Especially when we lost lead on track, we just had a big balance shift and got tight,” Byron said. “Just couldn’t gain a lot of speed.”

But re was still a final round of pit stops to come when a Kyle Busch spin brought out final caution of race with 37 laps remaining. Blaney was second when he headed to pit road but it was Larson and . 5 Hendrick team that had fastest pit stop.

“Let’s do this guys,” Larson told his crew as he headed in for stop.

Larson was first of title contenders off pit road, while Blaney lost four spots and was sixth on last restart. Blaney made up some quick ground and eventually caught Larson, but had to race door-to-door for several laps against 2021 champion before finally clearing him with 20 laps remaining.

“Blaney had to work for it. He really had to work for it,” Larson said. “And guys around him that were t in final four racing him really hard. He definitely deserved it and earned it.”

Larson was only previous champion in final four, while Blaney, Bell and Byron were racing for ir first title.

Bell was first driver eliminated after a brake rotor failure caused him to hit wall 109 laps into race. Bell was able to get car back to pit road, but his afteron was over.

“That’s first time I’ve exploded a rotor in my career,” Bell said. “It stinks to t have shot at end of it. We were all four close. I’m very proud of effort put forth by our team to get to championship four, but I do feel like we left a lot on table at various races throughout year,” Bell said. “I’m excited about future. We haven’t reached our potential yet.”