The NASCAR Cup Series championship race no longer takes place at Phoenix Raceway, but Ryan Blaney still enters this weekend with the same mentality.
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Simply looking for points is not going to cut it as he tries to erase an 85-point deficit to championship leader Kyle Larson.
"I would kind of categorize this as a big championship moment weekend for our team of if we can win this weekend, I think we can hopefully keep chipping away at it," Blaney said on Saturday.
"If we don't win this weekend, the job is exponentially harder going into the next three weeks."
Blaney sits fifth in the Cup Series standings with four races remaining in the Chase. He has a decent amount of time remaining to gain ground while passing Chase Briscoe (-65), Christopher Bell (-51), and Denny Hamlin (-49).
But he doesn't have that much time considering that Larson has posted an average finish of 2.8, which is on pace to be a NASCAR record for the best average during the Chase. Larson has also scored 76 stage points, further preventing his competitors from gaining ground.
"I'm treating it as they're not gonna have a mistake and we have to go win races to catch him," Blaney said about Larson. "It could go either way.
"Everyone is like, 'Oh, the law of averages, he's gonna have a bad weekend,' but they might not, and if they don't, then props, 100%. You did a heck of a job. You really whooped up on everybody."
Fortunately for Blaney, he has been the king of Phoenix the last few years. He has 11 top-10 finishes in the last 12 races, a run that includes four runner-up finishes. He also won the last two races at the 1-mile track.
Blaney led the way during Cup Series practice at the Arizona track with a lap of 26.969 seconds. He was third overall in 10-lap average at a speed of 130.616 mph.
The expectation among competitors is that Blaney will be the one to beat this weekend at Phoenix Raceway, and he is well aware of this fact. But that doesn't put any extra pressure on him to live up to these expectations.
"I don't go into places where we've run well and are like, 'Man, don't mess this up,'" he said. "'We always run good here. It's gonna look bad if we don't run good.'
"I just look at it as, 'Hey, we have a great starting point. Let's continue to build off of this and be confident in unloading.' I think it's better when people are chasing you and kind of watching your car through practice of what your car does really well. That's flattering."
