Ryan Blaney has been questioned in the past. Coming to Phoenix this past March, Kyle Petty basically said that Blaney’s success hasn’t matched the hype. A week from now, we could be bringing this topic back up. Two weeks from now, we could be singing a far different tune.

Blaney is one race away from making his first career Championship 4 berth. Last Sunday in Homestead, he entered -17 but left +10. He scored 18 stage points including a win in the second stage and finished runner-up. With Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin having DNF’s and Blaney’s big day, he gained 27 points and enters Martinsville on the verge of doing the unexpected.

“We just needed laps,” Blaney said. “The long run car was really good. I just couldn’t fire off for 10 laps or so. I think the track cooling off helped those guys. I think we were better in the hotter, slicker conditions when fire off speed didn’t matter as much and it fell off quicker. That played into our benefit.”

Can he hold on?

Blaney, has seven Top-5s in his last 11 tries on the Virginia paperclip overall. While he was 11th in both races in 2021, he did sweep both stages in the spring race. That’s the good. However, Blaney has been 14th or worse in four of his last six short track starts this season too.

But, the narrative is in his hands now. Go out and deliver over the next 2 races. On the season, he’s finished 1st, 12th, 6th, 2nd in the last 4 weeks.

“It’s weird. I feel like it’s been up and down,” Blaney admitted on his season. “I feel like we were really solid until winning in Charlotte and then I would say up until Sonoma, and then we kind of lost our way a little bit after the break and just struggled to kind of find speed and put together races and making mistakes, whether it’s my mistakes or pit road.

“I feel like we’ve done a good job as the playoffs have started kind of managing these races like we need to and getting back on track.

“Yeah, it’s kind of weird. I feel like we had a lot more top-5s last year and contended for more wins probably, but didn’t execute very good. I feel like this year we’ve executed pretty good, especially to the two-thirds point of this year. That’s something to be super proud of.

“It’s definitely shown that we’ve done a good job of believing in each other and just doing our job. So those guys are awesome at that.

“Yeah, I mean, I definitely think it’s probably not been the year we wanted at our group, right?” Blaney admitted. “You go from winning the championship with the 22 guys, and then we’ve struggled a little bit this year overall for speed and finishes and stuff like that.

“Joey getting knocked out in the first round was definitely a gut punch. Yeah, it’s easy to get down on that stuff, but it’s easy to get fired up about things too.

“Our group is always working towards getting better. I don’t think they — they don’t dwell on being behind a little bit for a long time. They just go to work, right, and they try to figure out how to be better.

“That’s their mindset no matter if we would have won today or not. You’re always trying to get — our people are always into it. Maybe they’re frustrated at times that you are not running good, but they’re always — they don’t give up. They always just try to be better and just work to solve the problem.

“I mean, you’re going to have downtimes in racing. You’re going to kind of be up top and then struggle for speed, and then it’s just a big circle of life really when it comes to that stuff. I think this is definitely a good motivator, that’s for sure, to fire everybody up.”

If Blaney can get to Phoenix, he was runner-up in each of the last 2 races there. His teammate Joey Logano won this race last year. Blaney has a fighting chance.

Logano had 2 regular season wins last year and it took him winning for the 4th time of the season at Phoenix to win the title.

Is Blaney ready for that?

Blaney has made the Round of 8 five times. All in the last 7 years. He said the key this year in advancing to his first Championship 4 is about learning from the mistakes of the previous 4.

“Yeah, I think just learning from mistakes,” he said. “I feel like I’ve made mistakes. Last year I made two massive mistakes and kept us out of Phoenix. So I think learning from prior experiences is beneficial there. Obviously you need your cars to be fast enough because it gets super tough, and these racetracks are — there’s no superspeedway or no road course. It’s traditional tracks. Then it gets super hard. When everything resets, you have guys that have tons of points. Today helped us out a little bit, but a couple guys have way more playoff points than us. That makes it super tough.

“If we can learn from past mistakes and have our cars fast and just not mess up, really. I mean, you have to perform. I can’t believe you took the execution word away from me, but no, I think just believing in each other and continuing to work. I feel like our cars haven’t been quite the speed they needed to be to compete with maybe the 5, or the 11 has been fast, but I think we’re still working. This could be a big shot in the arm for us.”