NASCAR Cup Series teams watching the No. 12 Team Penske Ford as it circles the tracks this summer likely are starting to feel like 2024 might just be last season all over again.
After driver Ryan Blaney matched his June Iowa victory with his second checkered flag in five weeks last Sunday at The Great American Getaway 400, the reigning series champion and his team appear to be heating up before a lengthy break.
Following this Sunday's trek to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the 28th running of the Brickyard 400 in the series' 22nd race, the Cup drivers will take a break as the Paris Olympics prepare to open.
This weekend's Indy race will be the first on the most famous oval in motorsports since COVID-affected 2020, when Kevin Harvick repeated his 2019 victory by beating Matt Kenseth by less than a second and then knelt to kiss the legendary bricks.
With two consecutive off weekends looming, the competition and the Indianapolis speedwar will attempt to cool down the red-hot Blaney on the 2.5-mile layout.
Winless through the season's first 16 points races, the third-generation driver showed last year's title-winning form by leading a career-high 201 laps in Iowa to beat William Byron and top Pocono's all-time wins leader, Denny Hamlin, last weekend in Pennsylvania.
"I think we are in a better spot at this time this year than where we were last year at this point," said Blaney, who grids fifth in the playoff standings as the only two-time race winner. "I feel like our speed is better. Our execution is great. We are doing everything as a 12 group the best that we can."
Only three drivers in Sunday's field have won the Brickyard 400 -- Jimmie Johnson (2006, 2008, 2009, 2012), Kyle Busch (2015, 2016) and Brad Keselowski (2018).
Jeff Gordon, the inaugural race winner in 1994, holds the track record with five wins.
Johnson's four victories and Kasey Kahne's 2017 title bring Hendrick Motorsports to a speedway-record 10 wins of Chevrolet's 17 total in 27 Brickyard 400s.
Blaney is bidding to go to Phoenix in the season-ending race and become the first driver to win consecutive titles since Johnson, who did it with five straight from 2006-10.
Both of Blaney's wins this season have been filled with emotion.
In a central Iowa homecoming last month, Blaney entered the 2024 win column in Newton in front of 80 relatives of his mother, who grew up just over an hour away in Chariton.
At Pocono, he was victorious at the track he scorched back in 2017 for his first career Cup win, a tight one over Harvick.
"It was super special to win here seven years ago with the Wood Brothers," Blaney said. "You love tracks that have special meaning to you, places where you get your first win and stuff like that."
Cup drivers, take notice: Last year's champ is following a pattern this season of clicking off sentimental triumphs, with another one possibly in November roaming out there in the Arizona desert.
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