RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Ford Fusion – “That was not what I had planned. It’s been a while since I crashed one of those cars, which kind of reminded me that I don’t really want to crash them.”
IT WAS PRETTY BIG. “It was OK. I’ve had worse, but it was a good event. We had our Racers for Autism event that we raised a ton of money for on Monday night. It’s something that we carried a tradition on that Bryan (Clauson) had, which was fun. We had a good-looking stable of cars. We had six of our cars make the race. We didn’t compete for the win like we were hoping, but all in all it was a good week and had a lot of fun hanging out with friends. I was bummed for Kyle watching it. I was really thinking we were gonna celebrate his win, but that came up a little bit short.”
WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU MADE THE FLIP COUNT? “Man, it’s been a long time. Probably there. Fastenal sponsored that flip count. I didn’t really want to add to it, but I told them I was like, ‘I think I was the last one,’ I guess I ended it but not start it. I don’t know how many there ended up being. That was not planned, but, like I told them, ‘At least I added to your flip count and got it an even 70.’ I told them when they first started talking about sponsoring the flip count I was like, ‘Hey, you should do a commercial like we’re gonna sponsor the flip count if you need any nuts and bolts to put your car back together, just come on over.’ It was good. It was a good week for us.”
WHAT DOES JACK SAY ABOUT THESE TYPES OF RACES? “Jack actually for the longest time never really said a word about it. We won our championship in 2012, fast forward that to 2013 and he was like, ‘I’d like you to focus more on your Cup stuff.’ So I didn’t race in 2013, ’14, or ’15 other than Chili Bowl. He’s like, ‘Give me a few years,’ so at the end of 2015 I said, ‘Jack, those few years that you told me are probably about up,’ so I did a little racing last year and I’m gonna do a little bit more this year. He’s always been one to kind of let his drivers go out and do what we want and have fun and enjoy our life. Obviously, he wants us to be prepared to get back in the race car. I ride dirt bikes. In 2016 I broke my fibula on it, but showed up and raced and kept going.”
HOW DID YOU KEEP THAT SO QUIET? “I don’t know. That was Easter weekend. I was in a boot for a while and I just had to take it off to race and then put it back on, but I told Jack I was good to go.”
HAS JACK EVER ASKED TO GET IN A DIRT CAR? “I’ve tried to get Jack to go for a two-seater sprint car ride with me, but he won’t. I told him I would go for a ride in his P-51 Mustang with him if he would go for a ride in my sprint car two-seater, but he won’t. I’m still trying to talk him into that.”
DOES IT MAKE YOU ENVIOUS TO SEE KYLE GO FROM THE BACK TO THE FRONT LIKE HE DID? “It was fun when we went to Nebraska and he drove my sprint car and was able to win. That was really cool. I don’t feel as sharp when I go race dirt cars anymore because I haven’t done it as often as I need to, but I plan on changing that, so we’ll see how it goes.”
SO MAYBE TURKEY NIGHT? “I’ll do some more Turkey Nights and some midget week stuff probably. My sprint car team is not really set up right now to run a second car. We did it for Kyle, but he talked us into it. That was a one-off thing and it was kind of a disaster, but it worked out. I’ll probably run for the midget team some.”
MIKE KELLEY WILL HAVE A LOT ON HIS PLATE THIS YEAR. WHAT MAKES HIM THE RIGHT GUY TO DO THE 60 CAR THIS YEAR? “He did a great job when he came over to be my crew chief when I was a rookie and he got David Ragan when he was a rookie and some of those other ones when Roush was having quite a few drivers come through. He kind of helped build that XFINITY program back when we had five or six XFINITY cars back in the day before I got there. I think the confidence that he has as a crew chief in this sport and what he’s done carries over to the drivers as well. When he was working on our Cup cars, I felt like he was making sure he did everything he could to make sure that we had the most downforce last year every time we hit the race track and I had confidence in that. I think he’ll do that same thing for the three rookie drivers he has and I feel like out of any of the crew chiefs I’ve worked for, for a rookie I feel like he’s the one to do the job. He believes in all of them and if they can get things going and organize as quick as possible that they’ll be competing for some wins before it’s over with.”
DO YOU WISH THE OFFSEASON WAS LONGER? “I just wish the offseason were at a different time. Middle of the summer. If we were off in the middle of the summer it would be nice because you could run a lot. I could have gone to New Zealand and ran, which I might put that on my plate next year to go do, but I think for the most part our offseasons are filled up with holidays – Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year’s, things like that. And then you throw in a race in December and Chili Bowl in January and media week this week and maybe a vacation and then you’re back ready to go racing. I really kind of like how our offseason is a little bit to the fact that we get back racing sooner because I didn’t really want the season to end. I thought we ended on a good four-race stretch to end the season and it really carried some momentum into the shop and I thought a lot of guys were pretty motivated to get to working on new cars for this year.”
SO YOU DON’T HAVE AN ISSUE WITH THE LENGTH OF THE SEASON? “No, I don’t. I just wish that we had raced more often, like in the middle of the week every now and then.”
TWO WINS, A PLAYOFF BERTH AND NO BAGGAGE GOING INTO 2018. DO YOU FEEL LIKE A WEIGHT HAS BEEN LIFTED OFF OF YOU? “I think there’s a lot of things that are looking good for us in 2018. I think, like I said, we ended the season really strong and I think my team has confidence in what we’re gonna be able to do. The cars that we’re building going into the Daytona 500 after winning two speedway races this past season, not looking for our first win is nice, not having that riding on your back. That seemed pretty tough to deal with for a long time and now I don’t have to answer those questions, but not it’s what other race tracks are we gonna win at? I definitely want to win at other race tracks, but going into the 500 I feel a lot more confident than I ever have. I always went into the 500 thinking, ‘Hey, lets’ get off to a good start. Let’s have a good points race.’ I never thought about winning the 500. I just thought that I was competing in it and if I won that was cool, but I didn’t really feel I had the confidence that we could. After last season, I feel like going in that is the only goal that we have when we go down there is to win and not just to get a good finish out of it. Until we’re done with Daytona, that’s our number one priority, but we do have a Vegas test coming up that I’m looking forward to. We’ve got a new car that we’re taking out there and we’ve got other cars to kind of judge ourselves off of. I know Larson is gonna be out there, so some of those cars that were fast on the mile-and-a-half race tracks last year will be out there testing and I’m anxious to kind of see how we stack up with our new car.”
HAVE YOU SEEN ANY PIT STOPS? “I haven’t. I was just telling someone earlier that I did a photo shoot yesterday and some of my pit crew guys were there and I was talking to them about it and they’re really enjoying it. It’s something where I feel our pit stops have looked the same for the long time. We got rid of a catch can guy, but, other than that, it’s been the same old pit stops. Making improvements on the equipment was what got your pit stops almost faster. Now, they’ve got more responsibility and they seem to enjoy it. I told them I thought it would be interesting after the Clash if other people are doing different scenarios with their five guys how many will end up changing before the 500 – like if we’re all doing different stuff.”
HAVE YOU TALKED DIFFERENT STRATEGIES? “I have not. I have been gone all offseason. I’m actually gonna go check them out tomorrow and Thursday. I have not been in any of those meetings.”
DO YOU HAVE THE CHILI BOWL FLU? “Well, Chili Bowl stopped up sinuses. Larson’s got the flu.”
IN A POLITICALLY CORRECT MANNER CAN YOU EXPLAIN LARSON SAYING THE CHILI BOWL IS THE BIGGEST RACE WITHOUT OFFENDING NASCAR PEOPLE WHO WOULD CONTEND THE DAYTONA 500 IS THE BIGGEST RACE? “I think, for one, Kyle and I have been trying to win the Chili Bowl a lot longer than we’ve ever thought about winning the Daytona 500. I think us growing up racing sprint cars, him in California and me in Mississippi. I raced go karts in the same building that we race Chili Bowl in and that’s just something that we’ve always strived for and not until as of recent history or recent events that we’ve gotten opportunities to even go compete in the Daytona 500. In the country I would say the Daytona 500 is the biggest, but I think there is a lot of people that would say even some NASCAR drivers that said the versatility that we have running dirt cars and stuff like that, they would like to win the Chili Bowl as well if they could. They’re both huge races. I want to win the Daytona 500 really, really bad. I want to win the Chili Bowl bad too, but I’m sure if you asked Larson today which one he’s looking forward to I’m sure he’s looking to the 500. The Chili Bowl is over.”
HOW MUCH OTHER RACING WILL YOU DO OUTSIDE OF CUP THIS YEAR? “I’m gonna do some. I’ll probably do five or six races throughout the season. I don’t know. I haven’t looked at the schedules yet, but I know for sure like five or six and I’m looking at hopefully doing more.”
ANY RACE IN PARTICULAR YOU’D LIKE TO RUN? “I haven’t looked at the schedules that closely.”
WE ASKED YOU WHEN YOU AND DANICA GOT TOGETHER HOW YOU WOULD RACE EACH OTHER IN THE DAYTONA 500, SO HOW WILL YOU RACE NOW THAT YOU’RE NOT TOGETHER? “I don’t think I’ll race any different. I try to respect everybody around me, especially at those speedway races. You don’t really want to put anybody in a bad spot because you put the whole field in a bad spot, but I think I’ll go out and race just like I’m racing everybody else and see how it plays out. Heck, when we first started racing together we got in crashes anyway, so it is what it is. I’ll just go out and compete as hard as I can and I plan on putting myself in a position to win the race.”
YOU PRETTY MUCH HELP HER IF IT HELPS YOU? “If it helps me, I’ll help. It’s kind of the same way I do with everybody else out there. I think if I can help and it’s gonna benefit myself, then I will. I try not to help people if it’s only gonna benefit them on the race track.”
ANY COMMENT ON THE AARON RODGERS NEWS? “No.”
THOUGHTS ON DANICA GETTING A RIDE AT DAYTONA? “I felt like it was just a matter of time. Like I always said, I think it’s a cool way to go out if you’re gonna retire for somebody that’s done the Daytona 500, running NASCAR, running IndyCars. Her passion has always been the Indy 500, so I think it will be cool for that to be her last race and to hit the two biggest races of the year in the same year will be pretty cool.”
WHAT’S THE NEXT STEP FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM IN 2018? “I’d like to start off the year at Daytona winning, but if not I really want to win at Bristol this year. I feel like we had a really fast car the second race last year there and I sped on pit road, so definitely gonna have to minimize my mistakes on pit road, I feel like. We sped too often last year and it cost us some valuable time and spots. I think for us as a team we’ve got to get better on the mile-and-a-half race tracks and we’ve got to earn more stage points. That all comes with fast race cars and getting your program better at those certain race tracks. I felt like there were so many opportunities last year that we missed out on getting stage points, finishing 11th, finishing 12th, so if we can make some adjustments to finish inside the top 10 in some of those stages I think would be more beneficial for us as well.”
HOW DO YOU VIEW THE STRIDES YOU MADE LAST YEAR? “We worked on a lot of things. I think we worked on a lot of things that didn’t work as well. When I feel we got off a little bit last season it was we were working down a path that we thought there was gonna be some good things at the end of the tunnel. When we got there it just didn’t produce, whether it be the downforce or the grip in the race car we were looking for, so I feel like there was about a month or two that we fell behind of not gaining on it while other teams were continuing to gain. I felt like we fell behind at that point. I felt like we started the Playoffs further behind than we thought, but I thought we ended the season – Martinsville, Phoenix, Texas, Homestead – closer to where we started the year based off of speed. So I’m looking forward to those things that we worked on. We worked on those things this offseason to hopefully continue that progress, but it’s not gonna be overnight. I think we have focused in on things that we need to be better on.”
DO YOU THINK THE FORDS CAN MAINTAIN THEIR RESTRICTOR PLATE ADVANTAGE? “I think so. I think Doug builds us great horsepower at those speedway events. I think each one of the Ford programs, I don’t know exactly who at Penske, but I know you have somebody like Tony Gibson at Stewart-Haas, we’ve got Jimmy Fennig – the superspeedways are some of their bread and butter that they really enjoy working on and tuning those race cars. It was obviously a huge benefit for us at Roush Fenway Racing, putting us in the Playoffs and giving us those opportunities to go win. Now, the focus that we put in on those, I think, is also what’s gonna help us hopefully improve on our other areas because we saw that putting one person really focused on our speedway program could really lift it fairly quick, so we’re working on all that. But I do think the other teams we can continue our superspeedway wins. I know Ford and Doug would really enjoy that if we did. I think a lot of our Fords work good together on superspeedways.”
DO YOU THINK SOME OFFSEASON WORK HAS BEEN PUT INTO THE INTERMEDIATE TRACKS? “For us, they have. But you’re not gonna get a real good gauge until we get to probably Vegas because Atlanta we were strong last year, but it’s a mile-and-a-half race track that’s not like any other mile-and-a-half race track we go to. It’s old, rough, worn out. So I think we get to Vegas it will be more similar to the Kansases, the Michigans, the Charlottes, Texas – new pavement, really fast race tracks and those are the ones that I felt like we needed to get a little better on.”
ANY CONCERNS AERO-WISE WITH FORD NOT HAVING A NEW CAR? “I’m not concerned. You just have to play the cards you’re dealt and we’ll see how that goes. I think we’ll start the season and I think the Hawkeye system could maybe cut some deficit down for us that Toyota had built into their cars based off the old inspection system. We’ll just see how it goes, but you’re not gonna really know exactly what you’ve got until we get the season rolling.”
WHAT ABOUT ATLANTA? “Atlanta will be a good test. We’ll see. I think Vegas will probably be the best test as far as the downforce and how the mile-and-a-halves will go. Phoenix, maybe a little bit. Maybe California, but probably Vegas. I think Vegas will be our best test because, like I said, setup-wise Atlanta is always more about the long run setup that you have on your car versus the all-out speed that you have. Harvick is so fast at Atlanta, so even though we don’t have a new body on our Fords, I can guarantee you that Harvick is still gonna be really fast. That’s why I think Vegas is gonna be one of those ones that we’ll kind of see where we stack up.”
HOW SPECIAL IS IT TO DRIVE FOR JACK IN HIS 30TH YEAR IN NASCAR? “I have been with Jack for a third of his years now, I’ve been here 10 years and it seems like yesterday that I first started with Jack. It’s very special to drive for Jack, the passion that he has for this sport, for racing in general, and then for his race team and all the employees and companies that he has. He’s dedicated. He comes to every race. He shows up at all of our meetings and then flies to Michigan to go handle other business he has up there and then fly back to the race track. It’s a bummer that he can’t be as hands-on as I feel like what he used to be, going around when we still had carburetors and things like that. Jack would always check spark plugs and be in the garage and he was still doing that when I first started racing and I thought that was the coolest thing. I didn’t see any other owner being able to go help their race team like that. It’s a bummer that he probably can’t run a computer good enough now to go plug it into the system and tune us up, but it’s been an honor to drive for him and I look forward to hopefully getting him back in Victory Lane more often.”
GRANT ENFINGER – No. 98 Ford F-150 – HOW BIG IS IT FOR YOU TO START THIS YEAR WITH THE SAME TEAM? “That’s a good word – continuity. To be able to actually know what I have in store for me for the rest of the year is great for me, great for my mindset and great for the whole team. I’m really excited to be with ThorSport Racing again for a second year and glad to be back with Ford. I think that’s gonna be big for us in the future. It might be a little bit of a transition period here at the beginning, but I think it’s gonna be really good for our team long-term.”
YOU WERE WITH FORD IN ARCA. “Yeah, that’s when I started working on ARCA cars and driving ARCA cars – all that stuff was Ford and I was in the Ford camp for a long time, so I was fortunate enough to have a fair amount of success with those guys and I’ve maintained a good relationship, so I’m looking forward to getting in this F-150 here at Daytona. It’s only a few weeks away now.”
WAS THIS DEAL A LAST-MINUTE THING? “As far as my deal? All of these deals are so tough to put together. Fortunately, I’ve got a great team of guys working on that with Blackstone Management and also ThorSport Racing has their own department there. They work together on putting a lot of these partnerships together, so I’m very, very fortunate to have Champion Power Equipment with me for I guess this is the fourth year in a row they’ve been some sort of a partner with me, and also to have Curb Records back and Mike Curb and those guys back for us this year. It’s tough to put all the pieces together to go full-time racing in any division, much less the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, so I’m very, very fortunate and very, very blessed to be here.”
HOW MANY RACES WILL CHAMPION BE INVOLVED? “I don’t think we’re ready to announce that, but they’re going up and not going down, so that’s a very good thing.”
YOU HAVE SOME THINGS TO BUILD ON THIS YEAR. “Yeah, we have a lot of things we can build on. We had a lot of good finishes last year, but there are a lot of places we needed to work on. We all knew that going into the offseason and our weaknesses are what we went to work on. I feel good about everything going into Daytona and feel really good about the direction all of ThorSport Racing is going, but especially our 98 group.”
HAVE YOU FIGURED OUT IF IT WAS A MATTER OF NOT PLAYING THE STAGES RIGHT LAST YEAR? “I think that was some of it, but some of it was we didn’t have the speed we needed. I think speed fixes a lot of things. We had decent speed. We had speed that could have won the race four or five times, but the stars didn’t line up and everything didn’t work out. We need to have speed like that at a majority of the races and then the stuff starts playing the way you need it to. I think that’s what it boils down to is the biggest thing. There are a lot of things looking back on the season we probably should have gone a little different direction on, but it wasn’t from a lack of effort. I’m proud of everybody’s effort and everybody’s effort during the offseason too. I feel like we’ve targeted some of those weaknesses and we’ve worked hard on them. I think you’ll see a little bit different team when we get to Daytona here in a few weeks.”
WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST WEAKNESS? “I truly feel like it was speed. Like I said, there were a handful of races that we had the speed in the truck that could have won the races. There were things you can look back on where you should have done this or should have done that with little tweaks here and there, and there’s a lot of things that go into that.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN BEING A FULL-TIME DRIVER LAST YEAR COMPARED TO PART-TIME DRIVER? “There’s a huge difference for me and in my mindset. I think where we get a limited amount of practice time it was taking me too long at some of these places I haven’t been to before to say, ‘Hey, we’re in a close box or we’re in a big box or we’re struggling with right-front grip or left-front grip or things of that nature.’ But I think I got a lot better towards halfway through the season or so and we started picking up, but we didn’t pick up enough. I feel like we know exactly where our weaknesses are and that’s we dialed in to try to fix. I really think Ford Performance is gonna help us with our whole group and everybody at ThorSport Racing. I’m looking forward to this year.”
HOW DO YOU SEE THIS RELATIONSHIP WITH FORD BENEFITTING THORSPORT? “I think there is definitely gonna be a little bit of a difference from an engineering aspect and from an aero aspect there is gonna be a lot more emphasis put on there. I think it’s still a little early on from my eyes to see how everything is gonna play out. I’m anticipating a little bit of a transition period there, but I think long-term there’s gonna be a lot more focus on us. Obviously, we’re a big part of Ford in the Truck Series, so I think there’s gonna be a lot of focus put on to that. I think everybody is pretty excited about it and if the owner is happy, I’d say that’s a good thing.”
MATT CRAFTON SAID HE FELT LIKE THE TRUCK SERIES IS IN A GOOD SPOT, BUT HE’D LIKE TO SEE MORE STAND ALONE RACES THE SERIES USED TO HAVE WITH SHORT TRACKS AND ROAD COURSES. COULD THE SERIES BENEFIT FROM SOMETHING LIKE THAT? “I definitely think so. I love racing the mile-and-a-halves, but in my opinion we’ve probably got a few too many on the schedule and we could replace those with a few of the smaller tracks. It’s great going to all the big tracks with the Cup guys and all that, but some of our best racing is at places like Gateway. The fans pack it out there. Canada, the fans pack it out there. The stand alone races, so I’d like to see some stuff more along that direction, just not necessarily your Cup race tracks. I’d obviously keep that in the mix, but maybe replace a few of them with something a little bit different. How about Salem? Could I request Salem or Mobile? I’d go with Winchester. We could sit here all day on that.”
WHAT IS YOUR TRAVEL LIKE WITH THE TEAM BEING IN OHIO? “I’m pretty logistically challenged these days. I love being hands-on and being with the shop is not really my place anymore, but that’s still where my heart is. I married a girl from Fair Hope and I moved her up here, so I can’t really move her again right now. I do a lot of commuting, so I just came back from Sandusky last night, so I try to get up there every other week or so just depending on how the schedule works. A lot of times I’m not doing that much, but I just love being a part of it. I want to put my eyes on it. I want to see and say, ‘Hey, I feel like we can make this better,’ and then find out why or why we aren’t going in that direction. I just love being a part of it.”
