DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. did not have to worry about making the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff last season as the winner of the Daytona 500.
Fast forward nearly 18 months later, Stenhouse and his No. 47 JTG-Daugherty Racing team aren’t giving up on the opportunity to make the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs for back-to-back seasons with two races remaining in the regular season.
Over the years, Stenhouse Jr. has proven his worth as a superspeedway racer. The former two-time NASCAR Xfinity Series champion has developed a great knack for what it takes to get the job done, even if it has come with some criticism of being overly aggressive.
Aggressive or not, that driving style might be the only way that Stenhouse Jr. finds himself with an opportunity to compete for a NASCAR Cup Series championship on Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway.
“It obviously doesn’t matter if you win the first or second stage. So, we’ll be just making sure we can do whatever we can do to make sure we have our car at the end of the race and be capable of running basically that last stint after you pit for fuel,” Stenhouse said Friday afternoon at Daytona International Speedway.
Staying out of the crashes is a huge priority for Stenhouse Jr and his team on Saturday night, but executing pit stops, especially in Stage 3, will be pivotal in the attempt to keep Stenhouse near the top of the scoring pylon.
“You’re going to run the whole race managing your fuel and trying to make that last pit stop as fast as possible so that you can get your track position then and see how it plays out. I think everybody’s in the same boat for the most part.. like your options on trying to win the race.”
“Nobody is going to come up with a crazy option to win the race, but you’re going to have to make your pit stops as minimal as possible and see if you can just keep your track position,” added Stenhouse.
“Getting on and off pit road, especially if it’s a green flag pit stop, will be super important. And doing it with a group of cars that can leave the pit road with you and get up to speed as quickly as possible to keep that track position. That will be all the things that we’re looking at throughout the whole race tomorrow.”
Not a fan of superspeedway racing early in his NASCAR career, the dicey form of racing has grown on the 36-year-old over the years, and with two of his three NASCAR Cup Series victories coming at the “World Center of Racing” – Stenhouse has put any nervousness aside and instead is leaning on the adrenaline of excitement and optimism that he will have a car capable of scoring his fourth career Cup Series win in the Coke Zero Sugar 400.
“I don’t get nervous. I think excited is probably the way I go into it,” added Stenhouse. “I feel like, throughout a lot of my career, especially in the Xfinity Series, I didn’t really like speedway racing very much. I felt like you never knew what was going to happen.
“I didn’t feel like I knew enough about it to enjoy it. I was just kind of out there in the draft. If I got a good finish, it was just because I got a good finish. And then throughout my Cup career, I felt like I started learning more; how to draft, the way to use the side draft, use the pushes, getting better at blocking, pulling up in front of lanes and having a better game plan.
“That’s kind of when my aspect of speedway racing kind of changed and I started enjoying it. And then when I started enjoying it, I started running better at them. I’m definitely excited; optimistic at our chances here.
“I think there’s a lot of people in the same boat, but we sat down this week in the shop and said that the only thing that we’re focused on is winning the race.”
Knowing that Saturday’s race is bound to be full of the unknowns, one circumstance is known for Stenhouse: he has to be around for the end of the race.
Getting knocked out before the run to the checkered flag will leave him just one more opportunity to score a win at one of the longest races of the season at “The Lady in Black” in Darlington, S.C. on September 1.
“We know that there’s a high possibility of getting no stage points and getting in a wreck, but we feel like that’s the best option that we have right now going forward, knowing that there will be a handful of people that are looking for stage points to move themselves up in the standings or whatnot,” explained Stenhouse.
“We know that we can leave out of here with one or two points, but we’re going to give ourselves an option in going to win the race.”
If Daytona fumbles, Stenhouse will turn to the famed Darlington Raceway – a much larger challenge than Daytona for a Hail Mary over the course of 500 miles.
As time has repeatedly shown, the Southern 500 has been as much of a wild card as a Daytona or Talladega.
“You know, yeah – this could potentially be maybe the easiest,” Stenhouse sounded. “But you know, I look at our races, really all year long, and there’s been a lot of opportunities that I feel like people have put themselves in, especially at like mile-and-a-half racetracks,” he explained.
“If you catch a caution the right way and all of a sudden you find yourself starting on the front row, our speeds are so close with these race cars. When you go back and look at lap times and average lap times throughout a race, like at Michigan, a tenth is first to 20th.
“So theoretically, you could have a 20th place car; catch a caution the right way, your pit strategy works out, and all of a sudden, you’re starting on the front row with tires. Any of us can hang on for a win if that happens. I mean, no pun intended, but there’s a lot of late-race cautions, so anything can happen. So, I think we keep our options open all the way until the checkered flag falls at Darlington, for sure.”
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