NASCAR Cup Series: Ryan Blaney looking forward to playoff pressure in return to Martinsville Speedway

Ryan Blaney pretty succinctly described his thinking about the final lap of last week's NASCAR Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

"Stuff's hard, man."

But, he didn't say "stuff."

Blaney led 46 laps at Homestead and was out front when the white flag waved, looking like he would get to victory lane and lock up his spot in the Cup Series championship for a second straight season.

Coming up behind him was the No. 45 of Tyler Reddick, who found speed on the final lap and passed both Blaney and Denny Hamlin to win and take the spot in the championship from both drivers.

Blaney said he could see the run Reddick was getting as the 45 was breaking away from the pack. He assumed Reddick would try to slide around him, and went to the top to be on the outside for when Reddick did slide.

"It was just the wrong move," Blaney said in a media press conference this week.

There were essentially four lanes on the track Blaney said he had to pick from. He chose the wrong one. Reddick chose correctly.

"It's so easy to be like, we should have done this, we should have done that. It's so hard in the moment," Blaney added.

"I watch a lot of sports. When I watch a football game I'm like, well, why didn't he just do that? I become that fan. In that moment when you're that person or that athlete and living in that time, it's so much harder than being on the outside and watching on tv with all the different angles and things like that. When you're making real-time decisions in the moment you don't have any time to process, think about it, go through all your options. It's boom, boom, boom. It's all happening super fast, and it's just a wrong decision that you make.

"You're never going be batting .1000 for making the right decision or the right call. That's what the difficulty of sports is."

As Blaney has gotten older he's learned not to dwell on the "woulda, coulda, shoulda." He admits he used to stew over bad races for a long time, but in a sport that only has seven days between races, he knows he has to quickly move on to what's next.

He always wants to learn from those moments without letting it affect him mentally.

"I just try to move on from them quicker," he said. "I feel like it gets easier as you get older and you are in those scenarios more. You're going to lose races that you feel like you should have won... How do you learn from it and put it in the back of your head and then you just move on. What is the next job? You can't do anything about it now.

"You can't just tear your mind apart and think about over and over, especially when we have a massive race coming up this weekend."

Blaney was in a similar scenario when the Cup Series came to Martinsville Speedway last fall. He was above the cutline in points, but had not locked himself into the championship yet with just one race remaining.

Blaney started that day 11th, moved up quickly, and pretty much dominated the second half of the race, making all the right decisions and leading 145 laps on the way to his first Martinsville win and a spot in the championship for the first time.

"We didn't have great qualifying speed, we didn't qualify good, but our race pace was really solid," Blaney said of last fall's Martinsville race. "Especially after 20 of so laps I felt like I could move around where I needed to... But my strong suit was kind of just running where I needed to, kind of low and out of the rubber, but also being able to move around. I passed a handful of guys at the top of the track when they got caught up in lap traffic.

"I think the versatility in our car helped out. Seeing where our strengths were compared to his and just being able to kind of move around with our car, where I feel like some guys were a little more locked into their lane where they were running."

That versatility is what Blaney is hopeful his car has again on Sunday in the Cup Series Xfinity 500. The No. 12 team comes to Martinsville 38 points below the cutoff and seventh in the playoff standings. He'll be battling Christopher Bell, William Byron, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, and Chase Elliott for two open spots in the championship. All six of those remaining playoff drivers have previously won at Martinsville.

Blaney is feeling the pressure this week, but he's felt pressure the entire playoffs, and felt that same pressure a year ago. He sees the tension as a privilege of getting to still be racing and doing what he loves.

"There's pressure in everything," he said. "There's pressure in everyday life... I feel like if anyone tells you in certain moments that they don't feel pressure when it comes down to this, I don't think they're telling you the whole truth, because everyone feels it. It's your livelihood. This is what you love to do, and there's a lot of people counting on you that work for you and work for your race team and things like that. They expect you to perform. It's about how do you handle it. How do you accept all the pressure that is given. How do you rise above it, and how do you enjoy pressure. I feel like you have to enjoy that because it's a privilege that you get to enjoy that pressure. Guys that aren't in the playoffs right now, they don't feel that pressure.

"How do you and your team approach the weekend understanding that it's there, not letting it get to you too much, and how do you use that pressure to motivate you internally. I want to be the team and that guy that overcame all the pressure and succeeded."

Thankfully for Blaney, he gets to feel the pressure at Martinsville, a place he grew up watching races and said was his favorite track as a kid, and one of his best tracks as a driver. His average finish of 8.8 makes him the only playoff driver with an average finish in the top 10, and he's finished in the top-5 in 53% of his 17 Martinsville starts.

Blaney called Martinsville the "perfect final race" for the playoffs before the championship. He's made the right decisions there in the past. He's hopeful he can again on Sunday.

"It's a grueling 500 laps around that place," he said. "It's really, really tough mentally, and the physical side of it too. You're worn out after this thing. I think it's the perfect race for it. It always puts on a good show. You're going to have a lot of contact in the race between the drivers just because of how tight it is.

"The hype of that race, it being your last shot for six other guys to get in, you're going to have a lot of intense moments. And I feel like that's what it should be. That's what the playoffs are for is having these really hard races, and a place like Martinsville being the last one and being the last shot for six guys to do it and have a shot at the championship, it's the perfect scenario.

"I love Martinsville. I went there a lot as a kid... It's one of my favorite racetracks, and just to compete there is a pleasure. I look forward to that. I think people look forward to that pressure of how well can you run at this really fun racetrack. Hopefully we can accept that pressure and rise to the occasion."

The green flag for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway will wave at 2 p.m.

Cara Cooper is the sports editor for the Martinsville Bulletin. She can be reached at .