BRISTOL, Tenn: Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wasn’t a threat for the win in Sunday night’s Food City Dirt Race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway – but the JTG Daugherty Racing driver utilized the closing laps of the race to sneak in a fourth-place finish.
Stenhouse admitted after the race that his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet wasn’t good following his qualifying heat race on Saturday afternoon, but credited his team led by crew chief Mike Kelley for continuing to improve the handling of his race car throughout the 250 laps.
“It honestly felt like I hadn’t run dirt cars much,” said Stenhouse after the checkered flag. “We just struggled a little bit yesterday. The guys worked really hard all night coming up with something different. We changed our No. 47 Irish Spring Camaro around and we were better.”
Climbing from his 22nd place starting position, Stenhouse had hustled to 12th at the end of Stage 2 and admitted that he utilized the six restarts throughout Stage 3 to position himself to move forward and collect his third top-10 of the season.
“We still didn’t have enough to run up front there (the lead), but we methodically kind of picked and chose lanes,” explained Stenhouse. “We got to running the bottom really well and made up a lot of time on restarts. They all just kind of fell our way there.”
After a strong start to the race at Richmond Raceway on April 2., Stenhouse battled mechanical gremlins that robbed him of an opportunity to contend for his second win of the season.
He finished 35th after starting eighth and eyed the new Easter tradition in Bristol as the perfect opportunity to bounce back.
Mission accomplished.
Stenhouse’s performance on Saturday night also delivered the Olive Branch, Mississippi native multiple top-five runs in a single season for the first time since 2020.
“(It is) really good to get a top-five and a bounce-back after last weekend,” added Stenhouse. “I hope that was a good show. I thought the race track was as good as it could be. You could run kind of all over the place, so hats off to the track.”
Stenhouse and the No. 47 team return to short track racing on April 16 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway where they stand 13th in the championship standings, 87 points behind new series leader Christopher Bell.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01 or email at: [email protected].
