Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Victory Lap: Ryan Blaney

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

Ryan Blaney joins Mamba Smith to discuss his win in Atlanta which featured a late night motorcycle joyride around EchoPark Speedway at 3am. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The excitement of the FIFA World Cup is now streaming live on Fox One, the official English streaming platform to catch every unforgettable moment. Fox One brings the action straight to your screen so you never miss a goal. Download Fox One and experience the FIFA World Cup live. I heard before the race that there was a motorcycle up for grab for the winner, and then I forgot about it. And then it was sitting in Victory Lane. And they're like, hey, yeah, I don't know if it's a motorcycle.

I was like, no way. What's going on now? Carnation, Mamba Smith, back in the hot seat for this week's victory lap on the motorcycle for the Kevin Harvick Happy Hour podcast. My guy, Ryan Blaney, YRB, what's up, champ? How about, how are you? I'm great, but I don't even know what, I don't know if I should start with the motorcycle or the mustache.

I guess we'll start with the motorcycle. I want to start with that shirt you're wearing. Oh, okay. Yeah. Look at that shirt called Dave Blaney. Look at the car back. I got the guy cast car. man. That was one of my favorite

favorite cars, man, that you got your dad drove. I know, me too. That was, I mean, that was his rookie, rookie cup car, you know, and the Bush series back then. So, yeah, I always like seeing old, all the Amicoe stuff of that. That, I mean, I remember him driving the Jasper car. He just had like a bunch. Obviously, he almost won the 500 in the 36. There was Baldwin.

Yeah, good times. Good times. All right, well, what about this motorcycle? Yeah, that was part of the trophy at Atlanta. So it was Harley Davidson. It was like a Sturgis edition, one of 26 that they made. I'm not sure the actual model of it.

But yeah, it was neat. I heard before the race that there was a motorcycle up for grabs for the winner. And then I forgot about it. And then it was sitting in Victory Lane. And they're like, hey, yeah, by the way, that's your motorcycle. I was like, no way. I was like, can I, and this was after everything, right? It was after everyone left.

Victor Lane, there was just some mass guard security people there, some folks from my group. And I was like, I'd love to take this thing for a lap around the racetrack. It would be kind of cool. And they were like, yeah, go ahead. It's what you can do whatever you want to do. I was like, okay, so I took a couple cruiser laps around Atlanta Motor Speedway. That's, I can happily say that I've done that. And that was a neat experience, just kind of me, myself and my thoughts, just cruising around the Speedway.

Yeah. What were you thinking about? Like, because that is, that is probably the most quiet time you probably ever had, like at the racetrack, you know what I mean? Like most of the time,

your cool down lap after a win, there's still guys around you. Like, what was kind of going through your mind? It was the most, one of the most unique experiences I've had at the racetrack, you know, with it's probably 3 a.m. at that point.

And I'm by myself. There's nobody in the stands. Yeah, I don't know. I was just thinking, And I was like, this is, I, really the only thing I was thinking about was this is, like, the coolest experience I've ever had. I have to racetrack to myself and I could just cruise around this thing on a motorcycle. And it was, it was cool. Man, it was, it was awesome.

So I know, I got some grief for not wearing a helmet and stuff like that, you know, but it was, it was something I couldn't pass up and I was just cruising out there. So I felt okay about being able to be by myself with no one else, no other cars around to where I think I can, I felt pretty calm. I'm not laying this thing down. I'm just going to be okay. It would be okay. Some things are in the moment, man. You know what I mean? Like it was just like an in the moment thing and like you just couldn't get a hat top backwards.

It looked like it looked like a movie. It looked like right out of movie. Yeah, you know, hey, and I'm a big, you know, safety, be safe, you know, like type of person. But it was in the moment. And I couldn't turn it down in the moment. Speaking of in the moment, you had a pretty funny moment. with me, our buddy, old Bubba Wallace. It was like, it was like the cookies and cream came out of the chat,

and now we're in real life on TV together. And that was hilarious, bro. That kind of went viral on us a little bit. It was, you know, it was the universe talking to us. You know, I was, you guys were doing the interview, and I just happened to be walking by at the time, and I'm happy y'all pulled me over. And honestly, when I, you know, when I went over there,

the screen that the monitor that the guy was holding up. Yeah. It wasn't showing like a live thing. Like it was showing like timing and scoring. So I didn't know. I actually didn't know that we were live at that point. But yeah, it was funny. It was like you said, cookies and cream in real life, Dave, back together.

Back together. Man, let's talk about the race for a minute. You guys really dominated. It's kind of, we talked about it a little bit before the race or maybe during the break that it reminded. me a little bit of like a 1990s Daytona race where you guys could kind of break away a little bit and one guy could kind of, you know, really pipe-pipe for it. And I was impressed that you guys had so much speed and were able to do that. Yeah, I mean, our car was unbelievable. I mean,

sitting on the pole, went on both stages, you know, ended up winning the race. Like that was, that was a fun car to drive. That's for sure. And the first run of the race was definitely interesting. I did not expect it to string out like it did. You know, our plan between myself, Joey and Austin, we were all starting close to each other. We're like, all right, well, let's, we'll try to get organized as fast as we can. And maybe we can string it a little bit. And really just like try to get the first six cars clear. And then we have the speed to kind of make sure that, no, like the top lane can't kind of surge.

But I didn't expect us to have like 10 cars in that front pack. And it'd be really separated. I think it was just, it was hot. There's the first, you know, time in the draft with everybody. So you don't know how your car is going to drive. And I think everyone's car was driving pretty bad at that point. And so everyone just had to keep lifting and just get spread out. And then as the, you know, when the rain came, it cooled everything down to where the second half of that race was more like the traditional Atlanta that we saw.

But my car was so good leading, especially, I could really control a bunch of lanes. I could kind of pull the bottom if it needed help to kind of subdue the top. I could, you know, kind of pull the top when I needed to. I could really just jump back and forth. And, you know, we would lose the lead sometimes when it's hard to hold the lead if you got like two or three cars clear behind you because they just get big runs and you can't block some of those moves. But I was able to generate runs to get the lead back pretty quickly.

So that's a fun car to drive. I called it a unicorn car because you don't get those. You barely see those. And it was fun to be able to drive that. So 12 boys did a great job of bringing me a. an unbelievable steed. You talk about that. How mad would you have been

if you weren't able to win with that car? You know what I mean? Like certain cars, like, you're like, wow, we were really that good. And then you don't get it done for one reason or another. How mad would you have been if you didn't win with that one? Yeah, I mean, I would have definitely been disappointed.

But sometimes that just happens. You know, I mean, I've had, we've always seen it of a dominant car sometimes doesn't win, just the way things play out. And especially in a place like Atlanta, to where you don't know. Like, it's a lot of,

of help dependent. I was fortunate the last restart to get a lot of help, you know, whether it was from Bubba, from Seabell, through three and four. So it would have been a bummer, but I would have understood, like, you know, sometimes it just goes that way. But so we were fortunate that it did all work down to where we could finish it off. Yeah, for sure. You were on the throttle, on the gas, mind you. Speaking of on the gas, yeah, I, you know, in your old age, brother, I thought that you were like really, you know, settle in. But I've seen you all over the place. You had your fast friend with WhatsApp.

You had the stuff with Amazon where you're undercover. And now you have On the Gas. And I guess you have a new episode with Ocho Cinco coming here. Yeah, yeah, I've been fun here doing a lot of stuff, you know, from, like you said, the WhatsApp deal with George Russell. That was fun to get to know him a little bit from NASCAR versus Navy that we did out on the base. The undercover show that I was an old Englishman, Amish, which was a, which was. a blast and then yeah on the gas this new show we have it was really i had this idea like two years

ago of i wanted to you know have a show to where we can get the closest thing to race ready cars that we can and put other athletes celebrities musicians in the right seat and give them like an experience like they've never had before and just give them a perspective of what motor sports is all about what we do uh so we had we did it up at i i i i did it up at i i MS at the Speedway and we had a car for the big track and then we had a separate car for the road course set up because I wanted them to give them two different experiences on all types of tracks that we have. And so that was a blast, man, just giving them an idea of what we do, getting to learn

about the person that I was giving a ride around. We had a bunch of questions and stuff like that. So we got to learn more about them. And Chad, Otocinco is our guest this week. the episode drops tomorrow. And he was fantastic. You know, having one of the best, in my mind, one of the best wide receivers that the NFL have ever seen.

And a huge personality. You know, he's done so much stuff post-playing. Just to get his perspective on, hey, how does your body and your mentality feel like after this compared to what you used to do? You know, what is the differences? What are the similarities? And I'll give it to Chad, man. He looked a little green in the gills for a little bit.

And, but he, he stuck it out, stuck it out, didn't throw the towel in. He went through it. And he was a funny guy. So I'm happy he had a good time. I'm happy people have really enjoyed watching the show and kind of hearing different perspectives about the different guests that we've had on. And hopefully that thing continues and we continue to do bigger and better things. Yeah, man.

Hey, I love it. I love seeing you doing the fun stuff. It reminds me of back in the day when we just be hanging out around the pool and just BS and, man, it's good to see you back in Victory Lane. I'm glad that the mustache has stayed intact. Don't let that thing go anywhere. I told Kevin the other day, like, hey, man, the magic is in the stash, so he can't get rid of it.

It's at least two tense. It's at least two tense. Yeah. So I don't plan on it going anywhere. Absolutely. So. Love it, man. Well, give the family my love.

Tell Charlie, I say hi, and we'll see you. Yes, sir. All right. Thanks, pal. See you. Thanks, buddy.