Ryan Blaney did what he had to do last Sunday in Texas. He and his fellow Ford drivers knew that they’d be bringing a knife to a gun fight. The Chevrolet and Toyota cars would be just that much faster. They knew that. So, don’t do anything to shoot yourself in the foot. Get stage points if you can get them.

That’s exactly on both ends of the spectrum that happened to Blaney.

He and his team weren’t overly aggressive and when the seas parted strategy wise for points, they took them. He scored the second most stage points out of anyone. However, with a speeding penalty in the final stage, it cost him dearly too.

A top 10 went by the wayside as when he was battling midpack, he was collected in a late race crash leaving him with a 28th place finish. However, those stage points proved to be crucial because he’s only 11 points below the cutline.

That’s exactly how many stage points he had. Take those away and his situation coming to Sunday’s YellaWood 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN) at the Talladega Superspeedway is much more dire. Luckily though, it’s not.

He’s coming to a race to which he should easily be the favorite to win.

The Team Penske driver has an astounding four Top-2 finishes in his last eight tries at Talladega including a pair of wins (2019, 2020) and two straight runner-ups now at that. On superspeedway’s this season, he’s finished eight, seventh, second, ninth and 36th at Daytona. He’s scored the seventh most points (149) on superspeedway’s this season and has led fourth most laps (77).

He also fits the trends of having a playoff driver win this race in 8 of 9 tries but in 4 of the last 5, the driver to win this race was 9th or lower in points.

Blaney is 11th.

“I don’t think you can pick a guy that is a favorite at Talladega because you never know what can happen there,” said Blaney. “We had had good runs at Talladega, but you never know what can happen.”

Which is why stage points are going to be key still. 11 points could go one way or the other. Get them while others don’t and you can find yourself ahead of the cutline in the final stage. Choose not to and you could go from 11 points out to more than 20.

However, mixing it up in the front while battling for points is a dangerous aspect too. What if you get caught up in a crash while doing so and not only not get points, but you fumble away a solid finish in the end. On the flip side, what if there’s not any carnage and you ride in the back playing it safe? Joey Logano did that last year and finished 27th.

“I think the best thing that we have talked about for that race is to try to control it like we have in the past and get a few of our cars up there and control the front of the pack,” Blaney said of their strategy.

“Hopefully, you can maintain that. We kind of see it is difficult to go from the back to the front now at speedways, so you try not to bury yourself.”

This superspeedway package isn’t easy to race with. No longer can you just come through the field when you want. It’s more of a track position affair. With that said, do you take the risk and ride up front and score as many points as you can get early?

You want the track position and it doesn’t hurt to get points early and often. That way if you do get caught up in a crash later, you have stage points to fall back on.

“It is [a different vibe] for sure,” said Byron, whose best Talladega finish is runner-up in the 2021 Spring race.

“I think it’s even more difficult to get track position. That’s the thing I’ve noticed about Talladega in the Fall. It’s not like you can just drive up there and steal something from somebody. It’s definitely going to be tough getting to the front and I feel like we’ve personally struggled with that in the past. It’s not been our best superspeedway race in the Fall.

“I think being a Playoff race, it’s important to get up to the front and control the race. It’s not like the Spring where there’s a lot of different agendas and not everyone is taking it as serious.

“It’s definitely intense.”

Blaney has the 5th most stage points on superspeedway’s this season among the current 12 playoff drivers with 25. 19 of those 25 came in the second Atlanta race however.