DAYTONA BEACH — NASCAR star Ryan Blaney’s success on superspeedways, the latest coming with Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 win, requires him to ignore looming danger, if not destruction, lurking at every turn.
The 31-year-old third-generation driver set aside a history of hard luck and violent crashes at Daytona International Speedway to earn a narrow win by 0.031 seconds over Daniel Suarez during a riveting regular-season finale that set the field for the 10-race Cup Series playoffs.
Before Blaney’s late-race surge carried him to the thrilling victory, his parents suffered every twist, turn and close-call during the 160-lap affair. But veteran driver Dave Blaney and wife Lisa ultimately were rewarded for a reluctant trek to Florida’s Surf Coast to see their only son deliver his fifth superspeedway win, including his second Coke Zero Sugar victory.
“Dad hates [watching] speedway racing. Absolutely despises it.” Blaney said following his second win of 2025. “My mom is a nervous wreck the whole time. I’m like: Just stay home. They just pace and pace and pace.
“But it’s fortunate that we were able to pull one out, so it was good to see him in Victory Lane.”
The Blaneys and the hottest driver on the Cup Series soon celebrated the most unexpected of his 15 career victories.
Blaney went from 13th place to Victory Lane in the span of two laps to edge Suarez and the cars of Justin Haley and Cole Custer by less than a car length during a distinctive and exhilarating four-wide finish.
“I had no idea. I thought we were three,” Blaney said. “Everything just clicked, and it all kind of is a blur.”
Blaney capped the performance with a rare and unbridled celebration, performing burnouts on the iconic track as fireworks burst overhead.
“I was fired up, man,” he said. “Whenever you win at these speedways, it pumps you up. It’s so cool to win here, and it was a big night.”
The largest crowd in seven years for a Coke Zero Sugar 400 witnessed the kind of a regular-season finale NASCAR decision-makers envisioned when the iconic race moved from the Fourth of July to the final weekend of August 2020.
The four drivers who trailed Blaney, including fifth-place finisher Erik Jones, needed a win to secure one of the two remaining playoff berths available entering Saturday night. Instead, those coveted and lucrative spots went on points to Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman, who was knocked out of the race early by a 12-car crash.
After Blaney’s win, Bowman said he owed his savior “7 million beers” while calling him “a good dude.”
Sipping on an adult beverage from a red Solo cup as he addressed reporters, Blaney said, “I’ll take 5 million. … I do need a refill if he’s still here. I can start with one.”
Now with six straight top-10 finishes, Blaney hopes Saturday night’s win is the start of another late-season championship run for himself and Team Penske. The team has captured three straight Cup Series titles, with Blaney’s 2023 crown bookended by Joey Logano’s in 2022 and 2024.
Logano had his own shot at victory Saturday night. But with 13 laps to go, his No. 22 Ford spun out as he went to block Jones, lost control of his car and suffered a crash.
Meanwhile, Blaney bided his time and stayed out of harm’s way to continue a successful strategy on superspeedways.
“I just try to be patient. It’s easy to get impatient,” he said. “You just have to let it play out and see what happens. I try to be that way … and in it for the long haul, and that’s what we were tonight. Just fortunate that it worked out for us.
“Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.”
Two wins at Daytona and three more at Talladega, including during his 2023 run in the playoffs, have turned Blaney into arguably the driver to beat on the circuit’s longest tracks. Along the way, he has suffered his share heartbreak and a harrowing moments at both locales, where speeds push 200 mph in the straightaways.
Blaney finished second during the 2020 Daytona 500 to Denny Hamlin when Ryan Newman’s suffered a fiery crash near the finish line and was rushed to the hospital with a head injury. Wrecks ended Blaney’s last two visits to Talladega and three straight races at Daytona before he finished both starts in 2025.
Each time, Blaney shook it off, recalibrated and aimed to keep his car in one piece the next time.
“I try not to let it bother me when you are unfortunate here,” he said. “I got wrecked and I move on.”
Dave Blaney, a four-time Cup Series winner, struggles to be as dispassionate as his son, leading the 62-year-old to generally avoid trips to Daytona.
“Hates seeing me wreck, as any parent would,” Ryan Blaney said.
This time, though, he treated his folks and NASCAR fans to a memorable and thrilling night at the iconic 2.5- mile oval. Yet, as Saturday night segued to Sunday morning, Blaney had yet to fully witness the wild finish.
“Looking forward to watching it,” he said. “I bet it’s pretty cool. I had a unique view of it, but I can’t see what’s all around me. So I’m excited to see it from a bird’s-eye view.”
Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com
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