Ricky Stenhouse Jr. holds a 41-point lead over second-place Elliott Sadler in the NASCAR Nationwide Series standings going into Saturday’s Ford 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway and needs to finish 37th or better to clinch the championship. Stenhouse Jr. took part in NASCAR’s championship contenders press conference on South Beach in Miami, FL, to talk about this weekend and possibly taking home the series title.
STAGE REMARKS
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 Blackwell Angus/Cargill Ford Mustang – WHAT HAS THIS JOURNEY BEEN LIKE FOR YOU? “It’s been a journey that’s obviously up-and-down, but I think one of the biggest things that makes me feel good is to be able to bring a consistent year to the guys that have stood behind me. Our team, everybody at Ford Racing, Roush Fenway, everybody that stood behind us and to see them just as excited as I am, I think that’s been one of the key things for me to appreciate this year. It’s definitely been a journey and I’ve learned a lot from it.”
DO YOU LET ANY BAD THOUGHTS LIKE BLOWING A TIRE ON THE FIRST LAP OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT? “I’m not really worried too much. We’re just gonna go out there and do the same thing we’ve been doing since Daytona at the start of the year. We’re gonna go out and get our car as fast as we can in practice, qualify as well as we can and just race as hard as we can. I think when you start trying to control things, I think that’s when you get in trouble, so we’re just gonna go out and do our same deal as we always do. Homestead is one of my favorite race tracks and I think we’ll have a good shot to win this weekend. I think that would be a good way to cap off Ford Championship Weekend.”
IS THERE ANY SMALL PART OF YOU THAT WISHES ELLIOTT WOULDN’T HAVE HAD HIS ACCIDENT LAST WEEK AND THIS WAS A CLOSER BATTLE? “We’ve been having a great battle all year. It was exciting. Obviously, it took a lot of pressure off our shoulders, but, looking back, that could have happened to us. You don’t wish that on anybody and, like I’ve told Elliott before, I really learned a lot from him coming down the homestretch running for this championship. He’s given me a lot of room. I don’t think we’ve touched. We’ve raced really hard and really clean and I really respect that, and I’ve learned a lot from him.”
HOW HAS THIS SEASON GONE WITH TREVOR BAYNE AS A TEAMMATE – ANOTHER YOUNG DRIVER? “Trevor and I, we both have obviously had different years with him having to be out of the race car for a while. I was there to support him and back him up when he came back and started running with us. Obviously, I was trying to keep up with him when he was running around after Daytona and showed him some support, and now he’s getting to do that for me, so it’s been a good year for both of us.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS THIS FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM NEXT YEAR? “It’ll give our team confidence for sure, but we’ve got to get some sponsorship sold before we can get back out there and keep going. Obviously, that’s been a struggle for us this year, to secure that sponsorship, and I think that’s gonna be our first goal is to get that secured, but after the championship is over, we’re gonna go back to the grind. The guys are gonna keep working hard and you can’t ever relax. These guys have got to work as hard as they can in the off-season and make our cars better. It’s a business that if you’re not keeping up with it, you’ll fall behind.”
ONE-ON-ONE QUESTIONING
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 Blackwell Angus/Cargill Ford Mustang – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THIS CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE? “It’s been exciting. It’s been an exciting race so far. We’ve had some really good races. The last month and a half or two Elliott and I have been battling each other in the top five, and I think that’s all you can ask for to have an exciting championship.”
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO POSSIBLY BE THE CHAMPION WHEN CUP GUYS AREN’T ELIGIBLE? “It’s gonna be cool. Nationwide Insurance has done an awesome job with our Nationwide Series and I couldn’t be more proud to win this thing and go represent them. It is a different era now, but I think it’s a great era. I think it’s for the good.”
HAS IT HELPED YOURSELF NOT HAVING CUP GUYS ELIGIBLE AS FAR AS GROWING A FAN BASE? “Definitely. I think it’s great that the Cup guys still get to come down and run with us because I think to know you’re ready for racing on Sundays, you’ve got to race with those guys at some point, so I enjoy racing with them and I learn a lot from them. I definitely still appreciate them coming down and racing with us.”
WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS WHEN NASCAR MADE THAT RULE ABOUT DECLARING WHICH SERIES YOU WOULD COMPETE IN FOR THE TITLE? “I felt like we were gonna contend either way. My crew chief and I, Mike Kelley, were sitting at this banquet last year watching Brad Keselowski get the trophy on stage. We said to ourselves then that we wanted to be there next year some how, some way. That’s what we were working for and that was before they changed the point system. When they changed the point system, nobody really counted us in, but we felt as a race team that gave us an even better shot to win it, and we just fought really hard all year. We came into this season feeling like we had a shot at it.”
HOW BIG OF AN EFFECT DID THAT RULE CHANGE HAVE ON YOUR RUN TO THIS POINT? “It would have been tough to beat the full-time guys like Carl and Brad, but we’re third in owner’s points, so I feel like we’ve done our fair share of running up front with those guys and getting a couple wins. We beat Carl and we beat Brad, so we know we can do it. I think with everything that we learned this year, the way we start next year could be even stronger than what we ended this year with. Ultimately, I’d like to win the championship and the owner’s championship for Jack. That would mean a lot.”
HOW DO YOU THINK THIS SYSTEM HAS WORKED? “Looking at the point standings, knowing that you’re up there, gives you a little more confidence. When you look at a championship and you look at the series standings, if you’ve had a bad week and you’re still leading those points, you still have the confidence and I think that’s one of the main things that it has done is just built a lot of confidence in us.”
WHAT HAS BEEN A KEY TO YOUR SUCCESS THIS YEAR? “The key thing I would say is Ford Racing has put a lot of hard work in our Nationwide Series and everything that we do at Roush Fenway. All the guys in the shop have worked really hard. We’re bringing better pieces to the race tracks. I think that’s a main point. I feel as a race car driver I’ve had more patience and more focus over last year. I think I started learning that about halfway through last year as far as what I needed to do as a race car driver to run up front and run consistent and we kind of just merged everything together this year.”
HOW DO YOU STRIKE A BALANCE BETWEEN RUNNING GOOD AND BEING AGGRESSIVE VERSUS TAKING CARE OF YOUR EQUIPMENT AND NOT WRECKING A LOT? “I’ve run for one championship before in my life, so this is still all new to me. I think towards the end of the year I really learned how to run for a championship, whether that be not taking as many chances on restarts or making sure I got to the end of the race. I can think about stuff earlier in the year that at this point now I would not do on the race track. It’s just a learning process and it’s tough to balance that act of just going out and getting all you can get and then kind of holding back. But what I’ve learned over the last two months is you’ve got to be around for those last 50 laps. You’ve got to turn it up those last 50 laps and you’ve got to maintain and survive until you get there. Earlier this year, I probably got ourselves in some trouble and gave some more points away, but it’s all about learning.
WHAT ABOUT NEXT YEAR? ARE YOU ALL SET? “We’re waiting on sponsors. Right now, there hasn’t been any talk other than we’re gonna talk after Homestead. We’ll sit down with Jack and Steve Newmark, our president, and kind of lay everything out and see what our best possibility is. Right now, we don’t have anything secured, so, hopefully, we can secure the championship and then, hopefully, secure some sponsorship later.”
BUT YOU EXPECT TO BE BACK IN THIS SERIES? “I expect to be back here for sure. I would definitely enjoy it. I think there’s a lot more to learn. If it was up to me, I would like to run some Cup races because I still think there’s a lot to learn over there running part-time, but that’s me – that’s what I would do. Ultimately, it’s not up to me, it’s up to Jack.”
