Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney, who heads to this week’s NASCAR Cup Series Chase race at World Wide Technology Raceway as one of the pre-race favorites. This interview has been edited and condensed, but the full version is available on the “12 Questions Podcast.”1. Do you typically arrive for things early, late or on time, and why?I try to be on time, and by on time, I think “five minutes early.” … Mainly because I wouldn’t want somebody to be waiting on me.Sometimes unforeseen circumstances are tough. I’ve been a little bit lackluster these past nine months because of my son (Charley, who was born last November), and I never know what’s going to happen if I get delayed a little bit — a blowout or whatever I’ve got to take care of.2. What is the pettiest thing that annoys you during a race weekend?Exit flow (for traffic). That can sometimes get pretty annoying. It’s a good problem to have because it means there are a lot of people at the race. But sometimes I feel like the way they have the traffic flow set up hurts you more than it helps.Like, “Why can’t I go down this road? Why won’t you let people turn left or right here?” I feel like it would be easier to just let people disperse naturally.3. What is something you’ve learned to stop explaining to people?I used to go really in-depth about the bathroom question (drivers often get asked what happens if they need to go to the bathroom during a race). I used to explain to people, “We sweat so much during the races, that stuff takes care of itself,” yada yada.Now I’m just like, “If you’ve got to go, go. If not, don’t.” (Laughs.)4. If you could go back to the early days before you reached NASCAR, what is one different decision you wish you had made?I don’t look back at one thing coming up through racing and think, “Man, I wish I would’ve done this a different way.” Obviously, it’s hard to complain because I’m very fortunate with where I’m at now. I feel like my dad (Dave Blaney) and I made the right decisions with the opportunities we were given.It’s a butterfly effect. You make one change, maybe something else doesn’t turn out the way you want, or things are way different. So I’m happy with everything my dad and I did growing up. It led us to now.5. What is it like to be in a debrief after a bad race?It depends if it’s a company-wide bad race — if myself, Austin (Cindric), Joey (Logano) and Josh (Berry) all run terrible — that’s a little different debrief than if we’re the only ones who had a bad race. If all your cars were off that weekend and the best one ran 15th or whatever, that’s tough.If you’re the only one who had a bad race, then it becomes more team-personal: “How are we so far off our teammates who are running toward the front?” We’ve been on both sides of that.It starts off glum, but I feel like you work toward trying to get better. It goes from feeling bad about yourself or feeling sorry for yourself to giving you a goal and a direction. You learn a lot from those bad weekends.“It goes from feeling bad about yourself or feeling sorry for yourself to giving you a goal and a direction,” Blaney says of debriefs after bad races. “You learn a lot.” (Meg Oliphant / Getty Images)6. I’m asking each driver a pair of wild-card questions — one about the past and one about the present. In terms of the past, I asked your dad to answer this in a 2011 12 Questions interview, so now I’d like to ask you: When you eventually retire, what do you want your retirement story to say about you?I’ve always wanted to be respected, whether that’s by your competitors or by the fans. That’s kind of my main thing. The success you have on the track is one thing, and that has its own story. But I’ve always thought about, “What did my competitors think of the racer I was? Was I a fair racer around everybody? Did I have their respect? Was I good to the fan base? Was I always accessible? Did I make someone’s weekend? Did they have a better time when we crossed paths?”7. In terms of the present, you’ve become more visible outside the race car with doing a YouTube show (“On the Gas”) and acting in several different situations. How do you think about growing your brand?I’ve been extremely lucky for a lot of my life to have a really solid fan base. Whether they were fans of my dad from the different series he raced in and followed me, or I’ve made new fans. With the stuff I do off the racetrack, I’ve always tried to value quality more than quantity. I try to do things that I’m passionate about and really enjoy.The “On the Gas” series (where Blaney drives around the track with a celebrity while interviewing them) was an idea I had two years ago. We finally got it greenlit, paid for and put all the pieces together. The idea was to give athletes, celebrities or personalities an experience as close as we can give them to what we do.With Amazon’s “The Undercovers” thing, that was an opportunity that came up (for Blaney to go in disguise and trick unsuspecting fans). I was a fan of what Eli Manning was doing. I watched all the other ones. It seemed neat to me, so I jumped on it. The “NASCAR versus Navy” thing was the same way. It seemed like a really cool concept, and I was fortunate enough to get asked to do it. …If it’s something I think people will really enjoy watching and I’m going to have fun doing it, that’s a big part of it. You have to really enjoy doing it. If you’re there and you’re not 100 percent there, you’re not giving your all, people see through that.8. If you could get any driver’s helmet in the history of motorsports, whose would it be?Can I do my top three? Michael Schumacher helmet, preferably from his Ferrari days. A Dale Earnhardt Wrangler helmet. And then it would be really cool to have a Cale Yarborough helmet from the Wood Brothers.Ryan Blaney has three wins and a season-best 18 top-10s this season. (Sean Gardner / Getty Images)9. When things are not going well, do you prefer people leave you alone or check in on you?I’ve never been one where if things aren’t going well on the track, I let it ruin my life. I don’t want too much to change on that side.Obviously, I want my wife there. She always supports me no matter if it’s going great or terrible. I don’t want her to leave me alone. You want the people who love you to show you support no matter what.Just in general, I’ve always kind of been a loner. I don’t need to get blown up all the time. I can handle stuff myself. But more support is better than zero support.10. What is something about yourself that would surprise people who think they “know” you?People think I’m this massive hothead because of radio clips in the car. It’s stuck with me through the years. I’ve done it to myself, for sure. I think people assume that stuff bothers me forever, but that’s just how I get over things. I have to get it out into the world, then I’m over it, 100 percent. …I never really call people out. It’s just voicing frustration over something. I get over that stuff pretty quickly. I’m not sitting in there fuming. But like I said, I’ve done it to myself. Now it’s even gotten to where people think I’m fuming when I’m not. It happened a couple times this year.At Darlington in the spring we had a bad pit stop. (Kevin) Harvick and (Clint) Bowyer were in the (Fox Sports) booth, and Harvick was like, “I bet he’s fuming right now.” Then they played my radio. I’m like, “Come on, guys. Get it together,” in the most monotone voice ever.Even last (month) at New Hampshire, they thought I was all mad, and I was just like, “Come on, man. F—.” That’s all I said. Very monotone. But they’ll put exclamation points on it in “Radioactive.”11. What is something you laugh about now that was absolutely not funny at the time?I’ll tell you the worst feeling I’ve ever had, and I wouldn’t necessarily say I laugh about it now. But I’ve joked about it with this person because he initiated the joke, and we play on it now.When (Ryan) Newman and I got together in the 2020 Daytona 500, and he had that terrible crash and was in the hospital, I’ve never felt dread in my soul like that. I didn’t know if Ryan was OK. It was one of those things where you didn’t mean for something like that to happen. Things just happened quickly, and the end result was really bad.I’ll never forget when Ryan called me three or four days after the accident and started busting my balls a little bit in a very Newman way. Every time we see each other, we bring it up. He’s in good spirits about it, obviously. But it was awful at the time.That night was the worst night of my life. I was just hoping he was OK. Now that everything is OK, it’s something I feel like I can qualify as an answer to that question.I can see Newman being like, “Hey, thanks for trying to kill me.”Yeah, that’s kind of how the call went when he called me that Tuesday or Wednesday.12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next interview. Last week was Tyler Reddick and his question is: “How has being a father changed your life? How has it benefited you in ways you didn’t expect, and what have you had to cut out along the way?”It’s changed my life for the better. You learn how to be incredibly patient. You and your wife are raising this child and their personality is going to be shaped because they are watching you every single day, so I’m trying to be very mindful of how I am around my child. No matter how young they are, they pick up on things. And even if they don’t consciously pick up on it, I feel like it can shape their emotions and something they carry subconsciously through life as they become a human being.I also feel like you grow closer to your significant other. My wife and I have grown even closer since we had Charley because you’re even more of a team. You’re trying to raise this child and tag-team it where you can. Especially with our schedule. …As for things I’ve had to cut out, it’s hard to see friends as much. Everybody understands, but sometimes it’s hard for friends who don’t have kids to understand how much work goes into it. They’re like, “Just drop everything and come meet us.” You can’t do that. …I’ll tell you what, though: We go to bed a lot earlier, which is nice. Charley goes to bed around 7:30. Gianna and I look at each other around 8:30 and are like, “Want to go lay in bed?”