Ryan Blaney reveals buying 80 tickets for NASCAR’s 'special race' at Iowa Speedway

Eighty of Ryan Blaney's close friends and family will be there in the Iowa stands to support him. Kyle Larson managed to outpace the 30-year-old to win the pole position, running at 136.458 mph, Blaney's car, the #12, is expected to receive the loudest cheers from the crowd. It seems the reigning NASCAR champion has a lot of family and friends in the area as he returns to Newton.

Ryan Blaney is already under a lot of pressure to perform at the Iowa race track since he has not won a single race in the regular season so far, following his championship win last year. Now at Iowa, he will have the pressure of not disappointing the 80 family members coming just to support him.

The #12 revealed that his mother grew up not too far from the place, which makes it special for him.

"We bought a lot of tickets that's for sure. So, yeah it's just nice you know it's nice to uh have a track to where you know part of your family's from and they come out to support. I mean they did the same thing 10 years ago uh when we raced Xfinity here. And nice that they all came back out and hanging out all weekend. So, um definitely a very special weekend for me just from that side of it and hopefully we can you know capitalize and be fun to celebrate with uh I don't know how we're going to get 80 of them across racetrack," Blaney said via Frontstretch.

Ryan Blaney mentioned that the track was the site of an impressive win for him back in 2015 in the Xfinity Series, where he led 252 out of 260 laps. Most likely, he would want to replicate that success in the Cup Series race as well.

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Ryan Blaney 2024 season so far

Ryan Blaney ahead of the GEICO 500 at the Talladega Superspeedway

Ryan Blaney is currently 12th in the Cup Series standings this season with 444 points to his name. He narrowly trails Alex Bowman and Ross Chastain, who are two and nine points ahead of him and 11th and 10th respectively.

Blaney's title defense started poorly with a DNF at the Daytona 500. However, he bounced back strongly with two top-three finishes at the Ambetter Health 400 (second) and the Pennzoil 400 (third). He then finished fifth at the Shriners Children's 500 in Avondale.

However, Blaney managed only three Top-10 finishes in the next 12 races that followed. He finished seventh at the Toyota/ Save Mart 350,which was held at the Sonoma Raceway.

Next up for Ryan Blaney is the Iowa Corn 350 at the Iowa Speedway. The race is scheduled to take place on June 16.