Ryan Blaney’s radio hijacked by nephew during Bristol NASCAR race

Imagine being Ryan Blaney, participating in one of the wildest and most unpredictable races of the year on Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, when all of a sudden someone not on the Team Penske No. 12 crew comes over the radio.

“Hi Uncle Ryan … win the race.”

There was immediate laughter over the radio as the 2023 Cup Series champion figured out what happened.

“Hey mom, get Bodie off the radio.”

Blaney also acknowledged it was ‘awesome’ and thankfully it was under one of the prolonged periods of caution so no harm nor foul.

This was his four-year-old nephew, Bodie, who was at the track this weekend alongside his other nephew Louie.

“That was funny. I was laughing,” Blaney detailed during a Tuesday Ford Racing teleconference.

So what led to the moment?

“They were in the bus beforehand and Gianna, my wife, has a radio in the bus where she can listen,” Blaney said. “Neither of us knew that the button worked. I thought it was an obsolete button to where they have that as far as they can make the button not work if you push it, but apparently it does. The four-year-old was talking to me before the race.

“He’s like, ‘What’s that thing with Aunt Gianna’s name on it?’ I was like, ‘It’s a radio to where Aunt Gianna can listen to my racing.’ And he was like, ‘Oh, like a walkie-talkie.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, kind of like a walkie-talkie,’ so I guess he took that and remembered it. He’s a smart kid. He figured it out and turned it on and pushed the button and gave me a little bit of motivation.”

And again, the timing of it all kind of worked out too.

“That was pretty cool,” Blaney said. “It was at a great time. It was under caution. There was not much going on and I got a real good kick out of it. We all did. All of my team got a good kick out of it, so that was funny, and I knew right away who it was. When he called me Uncle Ryan I was like, ‘Alright, that’s either Bodie or Louie, and I figured it was Bodie, the younger one, because I talked to him about this radio, so I got a good laugh out of that. It was a point in the race where there were a lot of cautions after cautions, so that was a nice moment of levity of just a little break. So, yeah, it was funny. We’ve got to get that button worked on to where no one pushed it on accident, but he’s a smart kid. I wouldn’t have known how to do that at four years old, but he figured it out.”