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Daytona 500 weekend is here and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. looking to etch his name further into history.
The winner of the 2023 race, Stenhouse would become the 13th driver to take home the Daytona 500 checkered flag twice.
After laying low for a few months after the start of the season, Stenhouse is “pumped” to get back into competitive racing.
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Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the #47 Kroger/Cottonelle Chevrolet, celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Cup Series 65th Annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 19, 2023 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
“I’m ready to go. My team, we have a lot of good things working with our team and everybody’s ready to go,” Stenhouse told Pakinomist Digital in a recent interview.
Stenhouse’s win three years ago didn’t exactly change his own view of himself as a driver, but he knows the Daytona 500 is where legacies are made.
“I think it changed the way that maybe a lot of fans saw me as a driver. I mean, anytime you can put Daytona 500 champion next to your name, that’s something we’ve been striving for,” he said. “I mean, I ran my first 500 in 2012, and it took me until 2023 to get that box checked. It was a huge win for a small team like ours. I felt like it really propelled us to have a great season that year, and I still feel like we’re taking momentum from that. Even though last season wasn’t the season that we wanted, we still wanted to show this year that we wanted to be confident this year. We have a chance to win.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the #47 Kroger/Cottonelle Chevrolet, drives during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series 65th Annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 17, 2023 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
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Since then, Stenhouse has won just one race: the 2024 YellaWood 500 at Talladega. Of course, winning in NASCAR isn’t easy, and it’s a constant mind game for everyone in the sport.
“It’s a lot like golf, as in, you know, a good season is going to be two, three wins, right? You’re going to have guys that jump into that five and six category, but it’s not many. You’re going to see guys make a top-10 living, right? It’s tough,” Stenhouse said. “But I think for us and Hyak and our team, we have 35 employees, we’re a small team, we kind of know our place, we know our resources, the things that we have.
“If we run top-15 weekly, it will be a home run for us. But I think that’s what keeps us motivated, keeps us going, not getting down, is for one, every week is a different course, a different track. And you just pick up your stuff if it was a bad week and move on to the next one.”
So how do they avoid the bad week? Or better yet, how do they have a successful week?
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the #47 Kroger/Cottonelle Chevrolet, celebrates with his crew after winning the NASCAR Cup Series 65th Annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 19, 2023 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
“It takes a car that you’re comfortable with, that you can push, push people, you can maneuver it left and right really fast. If you’re going up the track, down the track, make the blocks,” Stenhouse said. “But then you also have to have a good strategy. You have to be able to save fuel, keep your track position, and then when it’s time to come down pit road, your pit crew has to do the job when you get in the pit box to get you out and make sure you’re still in the lead when you get back out. And I would say that’s probably the hardest part of winning Daytona.
“So I will say here, lately, the last three years, four years at Daytona, gasman on the last pit stop has been kind of a game changer. He can save you seconds, and seconds are a lot. So put yourself in position, miss the wrecks and the mayhem, you never know what’s going to happen.”
