NASCAR driver Ryan Blaney looks quite a bit different now than he usually does — or at least compared with the clean-cut look he typically dons at the beginning of the racing season.
The No. 12 Team Penske driver has been growing out his facial hair for a while, though his progress this season was largely hidden by wearing a mask at the race track. And by the end of the season in early November, he had a pretty solid mustache and beard.
A few weeks later, Blaney is almost unrecognizable.
Blaney has been known to let his hair grow out during the NASCAR offseason, and fans have become particularly attached to it and are devastated when he cuts/shaves it for the start of the season (presumably to match the clean-cut look of Team Penske’s drivers). But what he debuted Tuesday during a Zoom press conference was a next-level grizzly look.
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“Maybe I should start not wearing the hat, keep people guessing,” Blaney said after being told he was only recognizable with the No. 12 hat on.
Fear the beard? When a reporter told Ryan Blaney he at first wouldn’t recognize him without the hat, Blaney suggests that the beard eventually will get cut: pic.twitter.com/ieOtsCgLPQ
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) December 15, 2020
“It’s a — yeah, I don’t know — a winter coat I guess is what you’d call it. So it’ll be gone before you know it.”
While it’s unclear exactly when Blaney will ditch his latest lumberjack look, but it will almost certainly be before the season-opening Daytona 500 on February 14.
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