Why Ryan Blaney Asked William Byron to Breakup With His Sister

William Byron and Erin Blaney, the sister of 2023 Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney, have been dating for four years now. Though Ryan has been a big supporter of his sister’s relationship with the Hendrick Motorsports star, there was a moment during the heat of the last season when he wished the couple had broken up. The instance was covered on the Netflix docuseries, Full Speed.

Both Blaney and Byron were Championship 4 contenders at Phoenix last year. On NASCAR’s media day ahead of the finale, most of the questions that came their way were about where Erin’s allegiance lay and how the championship results would affect the dynamic between them. Tired of repeating his answers to the press, Ryan turned to Byron to express his frustration.

He laughed, “Y’all should have broken up for his week then after the season got back together. We wouldn’t have had to answer so many questions about it.” Ryan had answered the press’s questions about who had Erin’s support by saying that she wanted both of them to win and in that way, she had the best shot at the championship.

He added, “I told Erin, ‘You have a 50% shot to be happy.’ We’ll see. It will be fun.” He also mentioned how he would still be glad should he end up losing the title to his sister’s boyfriend. However, he did admit, “I probably would be upset for a little bit, right? You just lost. But I would be happy for them, him as well, that he did win. I would show him a bunch of respect.”

In the end, Ryan ended up lifting the championship trophy though Byron couldn’t.

The reason for the awkwardness between Ryan Blaney and William Byron in 2019

Though Byron and Erin started dating in 2019, they hadn’t revealed the status of their relationship to Ryan. He’d come to know about the major family update through a friend when he was walking to a driver meeting at the Martinsville Speedway that year. In Ryan’s words, “My buddy’s like, ‘Hey I didn’t know about Willy and your sister. And I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ ”

When he confronted his sister and Byron about it, they’d acknowledged that they were dating. When Byron came to know later how Ryan had come to know of the news, he said, “Oh, gosh. Man. No wonder he raced me so hard that day. I should have handled that better.”

Byron also later admitted to Denny Hamlin on his podcast that he’d felt awkward about things considering that he hadn’t asked for Ryan’s permission before asking his sister out. Thankfully, more than four years later, the champion doesn’t hold any hard feelings for Byron.

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• Erin Blaney
• Ryan Blaney
• William Byron