DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.—Before Ricky Stenhouse Jr., could win the 2023 Daytona 500, he needed a friend and mentor to believe in him when he didn’t believe in himself.
Five seasons—and 199 races—between victories in the NASCAR Cup Series would trigger doubt in the most secure drivers let alone a 35-year-old racer whose career highlight reel was front-loaded by his successes from more than a decade ago.
When the working relationship between Stenhouse and longtime crew chief Brian Pattie deteriorated over the course of last year, the driver didn’t have to look any further than the front office of JTG Daugherty Racing to find a replacement.
Mike Kelley joined JTG in 2020. He was overseeing the car development while working as general manager. Kelley has been a driving force throughout Stenhouse’s NASCAR career. He led Stenhouse’s back-to-back Xfinity Series title runs in 2011 and 2012 when the young driver from Olive Branch, Mississippi dominated that tour.
During Stenhouse’s Roush Fenway Racing Xfinity days, when he scored eight wins, eight poles, 40 top fives and 63 top 10s in 108 starts, he seemed destined for greatness.
But times change. Teams change. People change. What has remained constant in Stenhouse’s life over the last decade is his bond with Kelley. At the end of the 2022 season, JTG confirmed the reunion between Stenhouse and Kelley.
At 51, Kelley could have stayed the course and allowed a younger crew chief to assume the responsibility of rebuilding the No. 47 team. Yet he refused to give up on his friend.
“He took me to a place I’ve never been and I promised I would take him back,” Kelley said on Sunday night.
That ‘place’ was not only Victory Lane—a destination the pair visited eight times in two years during their title runs—but to “a place of confidence” according to Kelley.
“Right to a place of believing in ourselves and each other,” Kelley said. “And when I got hooked up with him early in our careers, man, we were able to do a lot of incredible things that I hadn’t accomplished. I didn’t believe that was possible.
“We won our first championship and then to come back the next year and win a bunch of races and another championship, it just solidified for me that it wasn’t a fluke.”
Stenhouse has struggled since moving to JTG in 2020. Over the last three seasons, he scored five top fives and 11 top 10s. His only top-five finish in 2022 came at Dover in May. Before Sunday’s Daytona 500 win, Stenhouse’s last top-10 result was in the Coca-Cola 600 22 races ago.
“I watched him go through some tough times,” Kelley said. “It wasn’t the best of years for either of us. The last couple of years that I crew chiefed, I was not ready to walk away from the sport, but I’d walked away from wanting to be a crew chief.
“And given this opportunity, I wanted to be back with Ricky. I really wanted to challenge myself and push myself to get us back to where we were competitive. I wanted to get us back to where we had the respect in the garage that we once did.”
Certainly Kelley and the No. 47 JTG team certainly gained respect after winning the Harley J. Earl trophy on Sunday. More importantly, the victory will go along way in rebuilding Stenhouse’s confidence.
“To have somebody like Mike, who when he took over the reins as soon as the season was over, it was, ‘Hey, I know you can still get this done. We’ve just got to give you the right opportunities. We know if we give you cars capable of running up front, you can do that. We’ve proven that,’” Stenhouse said.
“I felt like his leadership throughout the whole shop is still not–yeah, we won here at the Daytona 500—but I still think the fruits of that is going to come later on from his leadership in the shop…But he believes in myself more than I do, I think, and that’s huge.”
As a driver in NASCAR as well as a team owner in the World of Outlaws, Stenhouse understands that success in racing begins at the top.
“What separates crew chiefs these days is that team aspect—leading your guys and getting the most out of them,” Stenhouse said. “We all have similar equipment, and that wasn’t always the case in this sport. So now it’s little nuances like that that help propel a race team forward.
“It’s special to do it with Mike. We accomplished so much together. We’ve gone through ups and downs. He’s been in the sport a long time. He’s a Cup champion as a car chief with Kurt Busch. He’s won this race before, not as a crew chief, obviously, and our Nationwide Series Championships and race wins were something that we’re super proud of.
“But we know those were 10 years ago and we need to make some new memories.”
