NASCAR CUP SERIES
PHOENIX RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
MARCH 8, 2025
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the No. 47 Hyak Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series’ practice and qualifying session at Phoenix Raceway.
Media Availability Quotes:
I saw you and Noah Gragson were kind of talking on Twitter a little bit. Is there any history there? What’s that all about?
“(Laughs) There’s no history there. Noah (Gragson) likes to have a lot of fun and give people a hard time, so I like giving it back to him.
Before I sent one tweet back to him yesterday, I told him I was sending one. He says — well, I got one in the chamber ready to send back. So, you know, I don’t know. He seems like he has a ton of free time on his hands, so I’m sure he’s always looking for ways to spice things up.
No, we’re friends, but it’s definitely fun. I think, you know, he’s obviously got a lot of energy and excitement around him. And so, yeah, I like to give it back to him a little bit.”
Weekends like this, where there’s two tire options, are you behind as a single car team?
“Definitely doesn’t help. You know, I think we get one data point on each set. I think, you know, I’m like Chris (Buescher).. I’d like to just have one option, preferably the softer option. But, you know, I get what having two does. And like Chris said, being able to have a test session where if it is a disaster with that one, then you have the other option to run. But, you know, I do like that we’re going a direction of softer tires and tires that wear out. So hopefully, you know, we can continue to build on that.
You know, I think we saw at the All-Star race that, the softer option was by far dominant, even on the long run with a track that doesn’t wear it out. So I assume, you know, here at Phoenix will probably be really similar to that. I think at Richmond, you get a lot of tire wear in general, and so the softer tire wore out and there was different strategies to be had. I think here, you’re probably going to save them for the last two runs if you want a good finish. But it does open the option up with, you know, different strategies to keep you on the lead lap, depending on kind of where you’re running; what you’re doing or trying to get some stage points or whatever. So, you know, it’s just something that, for us, we haven’t ran that well here at Phoenix. And so Mike (Kelley, crew chief) and I had been talking about trying to watch what some of these leaders do on green flag pit stops with that other option tire. If you’ve got somebody that pits and puts the options on versus the proms and is trying to get a stage win, now all of a sudden they’re running quite a bit faster. So we might have to react if we are in the position of trying to stay on the lead lap or something like that.
So, you know, hopefully we’re not in that position. But if that is the case, it could switch people’s strategies up quite a bit throughout the race, just depending on kind of reacting to what other teams do. But I think if you’re going to win the race, I would assume you’ve got to keep them both for the last stage.”
Kind of an off topic question for you.. with some of the bigger tracks that are coming up on the schedule, like next week at Las Vegas, and then you’ve got Homestead and Darlington. What does it take to run the wall at those particular racetracks?
“Yeah, I mean I think you’ve got to have a good car capable of doing it. And then, you know, there’s definitely an art to it, as well. I think it’s interesting… I feel like a lot more people can run closer to the wall now with this race car. You know, you can — I wouldn’t say bounce it off the fence, but you can touch the fence and kind of get away with it. Obviously the toe links are kind of sensitive, but we enter on the wall so close now that it’s not like you’re sliding up to it. You know, and then it’s odd — downshifting at some of those racetracks and running the wall like at Homestead, right? Like that’s something that we never did. And, you know, used to with the old cars, you had to keep your momentum up and you had to enter with speed.
You had to have a lot of speed up there, not shifting. And now it’s like, you can just kind of go in there, you know, use some brake and downshift. And so I feel like it’s gotten more people more comfortable, you know, running the wall and it’s the preferred lane.
So it kind of is something that we all, you know, just had to do, right? There’s still guys that are better at it than others, you know, and you can tell which cars are handling better inches away from the wall. And, you know, I think it’s fun and this car’s fun running up there. But I don’t think it just, to me, it just gets the wheel out of it… turning the wheel less, and your car has more rear grip because anytime you turn the wheel with these cars, with all the caster that we have, it takes rear grip away from the car. With our old cars, I felt like we ran up there because we gained a lot of side force and that kind of aero balance tightened your car up. And this, I feel like it’s more of, just gets the wheel out of it and, you know, gives you more rear traction.”
To that point, who do you think in the Cup Series is the best at running the wall right now?
“I mean, I would put (Kyle) Larson,(Tyler) Reddick and (Christopher) Bell probably at the top. You know, I think they were some of the best in the old cars, so I feel like it’s made it easier for them.
You know, it’s not like it made it more difficult. I felt like it’s brought people that weren’t as great at it into being able to do it a little easier. So I would say those three are probably still the best.”
A lot of buzz around Kyle and Christopher getting ready for the High Limit kickoff Thursday in Las Vegas. What are your plans to get back out on the dirt track?
“Yeah, I was just actually talking to my dad about that. He’s going to be working on our NOS Energy Drink sprint car over the next few weeks. I plan on running Talladega, the 360 races there, and then heading over towards Texas for the High Limit races there. So that’ll be kind of the kickoff to my sprint car racing for the season. And then we’ll kind of see after that… I don’t have a set schedule. I think if it was up to my dad, we would race every weekend, but just logistically trying to do everything. It’s normally just kind of dad and I when we go racing. So try not to overwhelm him, even though he’s ready for it (laughs).
This kind of piggybacks off an earlier question, but what do you think separates the good cars at Phoenix from the really great cars at Phoenix?
“Yeah, I mean, at Phoenix, obviously you see teams and cars that are always at the front here. And it seems like no matter what, those cars are it.
So for us, you know, we have struggled really bad here at Phoenix over the last two, three years… and in both races. You know, we’ve had some bright spots. So we’ve kind of revamped our program for this weekend to try and, you know, get our car to be a good car.
I don’t think it’ll be a great car yet. I think we kind of got to build a foundation. You know, it seems like to me, anytime you get to a racetrack where you’re shifting a lot, I think that kind of brings the Fords into play a little bit on the short-tracks. And then, you know, obviously the Penske cars are by far elite here. And then I think it’s kind of a mixed bag of which cars are better after that. So you got to have a car that can get into the corner with some stability and not be too loose in, and then obviously your front tires work right dead center of the corner. You know, trying to get that balance right is very difficult here at Phoenix. And then with both ends being so different, if you can have that in both ends, then you’re pretty elite, and I think you see that throughout both races here. I think the No. 12 (Ryan Blaney) and No. 22 (Joey Logano) are definitely by far the best.”
So you were talking about the High Limit kickoff at Las Vegas, but I’m curious, (Kyle) Larson has said that having Christopher Bell run in that series just elevates the awareness of dirt car racing. And I’m curious, I saw him speak to you, I think we were at Daytona at Media Day, and he was giddy. ‘Giddy’ the word that Larson used. And you told him you were racing Texas and he just, you know, he’s like — I want to go, you know, you could just kind of see it in him. How much has that opened the floodgate for Christopher Bell? I mean, we’ve watched him win the last two races. How much do you think that that has helped his mental psyche and, you know, just making him more comfortable on the track?
“Yeah, I think, you know — I look back at my Cup career and, you know, I was asked to quit racing sprint cars when I switched to Cup my rookie season in 2013. I mean, I was in the Xfinity Series. I was racing 30 to 40 times a year in sprint cars, as well as racing the Nationwide Series at the time.
And so, you know, for me, I was super bummed and it kind of made you resent racing NASCAR a little bit, right? And I was like that until, you know, really 2016 that I didn’t get back in a sprint car for those years. And so, you know, I could see that in Christopher, as well. And like you said, that’s the most excited I’ve seen him be was DAYTONA 500 media day when we were talking about him racing sprint cars again.
So it’s cool to see. I think, obviously he owes a lot to Ty Gibbs for that. You know, Ty’s just as excited as Christopher is being teammates with him at the Chili Bowl and him talking about him running sprint cars now. And so, yeah, obviously I think for me, it just puts you in a better headspace coming into the races.
And, you know, obviously I think you put Christopher in a better headspace with as fast as they are already and you’re already seeing those results.”
With these more normal tracks coming up, like Las Vegas and Homestead, is this the time where you’re really about to see what your team has with these more normal tracks coming up?
“Yeah, for sure. I think for us at Hyak Motorsports, I think we knew with the schedule layout that we needed to really capitalize on those first couple of races for us to gain the points that we needed, and we did that. You know, we left Atlanta eighth in points. We knew going into COTA, we didn’t get a lot of time. We got in that first lap wreck at Watkins Glen on the backstretch there, so we didn’t get time on that new tire and we really struggled at COTA with that. So, you know, for us to kind of get out of COTA with an 18th place finish was, I was pretty excited about that for as bad as I felt like we were running. We know that Phoenix is going to be a big test for us, to kind of see where our short-track program is.
But then, yeah, we’re excited to get to the mile-and-a-half racetracks. I think we’re closer as a team; our balance of the race car and speed is better on the mile-and-a-halves than we are at the short-tracks right now. So it’ll be nice to run Phoenix for us; kind of get a baseline and see where we are. And then, you know, jump to those mile-and-a-halves and kind of get back on the horse of getting good finishes and running closer to the front.
And, you know, hopefully we do that this weekend at Phoenix as well, but we do know that this has been a struggle for us. So it’ll be nice to get that short-track package; get a run on it, kind of reevaluate as we go back to the mile-and-a-halves. And yeah, I mean, you got to be good at all racetracks, so we’re just trying to elevate our game at all of them.”
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