WINSTON CUP RACING Blaney keeps improving on circuit

By EARL MA
RACING PRESS
MOORESVILLE, NC. -- When Johnny Benson won the Pop Secret 400 last fall in Rockingham, N.C., he finally shed himself of the dubious title worn during much of his tenure in Winston Cup -- the best driver on the circuit without a victory. One could claim he has now passed that torch to another championship winner still serving his Winston Cup apprenticeship, Dave Blaney.
In his third season of Winston Cup, the 1995 World of Outlaws champion enjoyed a moderately successful 2002 campaign, his first with the Doug Bawel-owned Jasper Motorsports team. The yellow No. 77 Taurus earned both Blaney and Jasper a career-best 19th in season points, with five top-10 finishes and 96.3 percent of the total laps completed.
Earned first career pole
This season has brought the group better results if not more consistency, with Blaney earning his first career pole at Rockingham. He then stared tantalizingly at the lead duo of Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch as they beat and banged on each other across the final stripe at Darlington. Had either one of them slipped up, Blaney's career-best third-place finish could easily and dramatically have improved.
Blaney points towards "a little bit of everything" as the key to Jasper's better performance curve of late.
"There's room everywhere to improve, from the driver and his feedback to the driver and the crew chief working together to the pit stops - just every single thing," he said. "And maybe getting those things where you don't have good days and bad days - where you just have solid days every day, and it's easier to work from there. There's not a big gap here in Winston Cup from the front to the back, so every little thing counts."
The single car Jasper team has historically not commanded much attention until now. With notable drivers such as Bobby Hillin Jr. and Robert Pressley having not made too much of an impact over the team's seven-year history (apart from Pressley's runner-up finish in the inaugural 2001 Chicagoland event), it appeared Blaney would make a lateral move at best when he departed Bill Davis' 2-car operation following the 2001 season.
"That's what we ended up doing, so there's no sense in worrying about if it was better, worse or the same," he said. "I thought it was a good move when we made it, and I still think it was a good move. We had a first season where we'd hoped for a little bit more, honestly. We're sitting inside the top 20 in points, so that's a positive. We've run well quite a few times, but we were lacking a few of the finishes that we maybe thought we should've had. Overall it's been pretty good, and I see some improvement continually, so that's the big thing."
Following four years with Davis through the Busch Series and then Winston Cup, Blaney's year began slowly as he and the crew - led by longtime Jasper crew chief Ryan Pemberton - developed a working relationship.
"They learned more of what I like and what I can go fast with and what I can't," said Blaney. "You start narrowing things down on things you want to do and things you can do, and I think in the second half of the year that definitely improved."
Got first start in 1992
Blaney actually made his Winston Cup debut at Rockingham in late 1992, driving for Stan Hover. At the time he was still very much a World of Outlaws regular.
Blaney brought his sponsor Amoco up from the World of Outlaw ranks and aligned himself with Davis in 1998, running the full Busch program the next two years along with the occasional Cup appearance.
"There were a lot of things that were hard [about transitioning from sprint cars], but I probably can't just single one thing out," said Blaney. "Just learning the feel of the cars - what they need and how much they need to make them better, and when you're driving too hard or not driving hard enough. There are just so many little things and it takes nothing but time to learn it."
Moving to stock cars also forced Blaney into developing a skill he never foresaw needing while pounding around quarter mile dirt ovals - the occasional road course event.
"Before I ran my first ever road course in the Busch Series, I went to the Bondurant School in Phoenix and learned quite a bit," he said. "I had an instructor named Chris Cook who helped me out a lot. My first time out in the Busch car, we ran good at Watkins Glen. Since then we've been spotty here and there, but we did run pretty good last year on both of them."
When Pemberton left at year's end to accept the spot on Jerry Nadeau's team, Jasper's 2003 program lost another important link of continuity. But new crew chief Robert "Bootie" Barker, like Blaney an alumnus of Bill Davis Racing, filled the void.
Hopes for top-15
In terms of the ongoing 2003 campaign, Blaney has his benchmark set at "top 15 in the points and a whole bunch of top 10 finishes, some top five's and we'll see if we can get a shot at the win. Just being consistent and consistently faster is what we need to work on."
So realistically, how long will it be before Blaney can hand off that dubious title of best Winston Cup driver without a victory? As Rockingham and Darlington demonstrated this spring, that day could come soon enough.
"I've felt like we've had a car that's had a couple of shots at winning, but you see that a lot; you have to finish the deal out," he said. "I could see our team jumping up and winning a race; it wouldn't shock me that much. Is my team consistently running in the top ten yet? No, but we can jump up and win a race; it wouldn't surprise me at any time if it happened.
"I'd sure love to get that monkey off my back and get that one under my belt."