NASCAR CUP SERIES
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
DAYTONA 500 MEDIA DAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
FEBRUARY 11, 2026
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47 Hyak Motorsports Chevrolet – 2026 DAYTONA 500 Media Day Quotes:
Ricky, how great is it to be sharing a track with Tony Stewart?
“Yeah, it’s cool. I mean, I’ve got to race Tony in my first Daytona 500 in 2012. I believe I crashed him on accident in the tri-oval in 2012. No, as soon as he announced he was running, I texted him and said, hey, you got a drafting partner. At that time, we hadn’t announced that I was running, so he didn’t know. No, it will be awesome. Looking forward to getting out there. I think the Truck race is going to be one of those that a lot of people are going to want to watch. We got a lot of good Cup guys running, a lot of great talent. I got Pastrana and Cleetus as my teammates. Hopefully we can keep our band of brothers up there up front along with Perez. Should be a good week. Looking forward to Friday. But also looking forward to just racing more. Get the Duels on Thursday, Truck race on Friday. Hopefully a smooth, quiet Saturday to get ready for the 500 on Sunday.”
How much have you interacted with Cleetus and Travis?
“I’ve known Travis for a long time. He and I are good friends. Cleetus I’ve talked to a decent amount of times. Respect everything that he’s been able to do. I’ve watched his ARCA races. They said his truck test went good. Yeah, just really cool to have him. I know this weekend means a lot to him with how tight him and Greg were, especially late in that. Yeah, it will be cool to be a teammate with him.”
As somebody who was a teammate with Greg for a few years, do you have a fond memory of him?
“I just loved the way Greg talked about his race cars. It was very animated. You thought he was a little crazy. When he got to the end of what he was talking about, you knew exactly what his car was doing. I feel like I learned a lot from him in that. Any little thing that you can say about a car, no matter how you say it, could spark something in your engineers or crew chiefs. I think that helps me explain how my race cars are and helped me from then on. I used to sit on his pit box when I raced the Nationwide Series. I sat on his pit box every Sunday. I listened to him and Greg Erwin constantly talk about his race car. I learned a lot from Greg.
You talked over the summer how you wanted to do a Truck race. Here we are.
“It’s wild (laughter). I’m looking forward to it. Everybody at Niece builds great race trucks. Going there in the off-season has been fun, just figuring out everything that’s going on in the Truck Series, sitting in the trucks, having them walk around the Trucks to show me where the nose is because I’ve never been in one. It seems like the noses are pretty far out.
Yeah, just crazy that it took this long to get my first one. But looking forward to back-to-back starts, maybe a couple more throughout the season. Working on that with the Niece guys now.
Super pumped about Friday, but also really looking forward to Atlanta, as well.”
Truck Night America has been a big thing for a while.
“Everybody is going to be glued in watching. I mean, you got Pastrana, McFarland, then all the Cup guys. Just all in all I think it will be a really good race. I think a lot of times you get the Truck races where they get kind of single-filed out, not a lot of moving and passing. I mean, I think all of us will be, you know, trying to get to the front and see what happens. I’m going to use the first half of the race to figure out what these things do, how they draft, how they push, kind of how they feel when you get beside each other. I’m much looking forward to it.”
Could the Truck race be an opportunity in the Cup season, where if there are any drivers who you may have a score to settle?
“No, I would never settle a score in a superspeedway race.”
Not giving them the run they’re looking for or something.
“No. I mean, I think if it’s going to benefit you in a superspeedway race, you’ll definitely take the opportunity to take a run, no matter who it’s with. Again, I would say in superspeedway racing you’re always looking out for yourself, no matter what. But it’s just going to be wild. Again, I’ve never ran one. We got a lot of great talent in the Truck Series full-time, then you got a lot of us coming in that’s got a lot of experience, especially drafting. It will be kind of cool to see how it all shakes out.”
You’re doing double duty this weekend. Do you feel like the preparation of not doing one race but two, is there any tradeoff doing Trucks?
“No, I don’t think there’s any tradeoff. I’m excited to just race more. You come down here. You qualify tonight. You run the Duel race on Thursday. You might practice Friday or Saturday. Probably not both. Kind of sit around a lot. It will be nice to be in a race car, just get back behind the wheel, get in the flow of things.
What is your favorite part of just the Daytona 500 experience?
“Yeah, I just love Daytona 500 week. After the Super Bowl on Sunday, it’s all about us. Every household in America is probably going to have a TV on and watching the race, right? It’s big numbers that tune into our race on FOX. They announced another sellout for the 11th year in a row. 31-plus million-dollar purse. I enjoy coming down and doing stuff all week. Like my schedule is slammed, but I love it. We haven’t been doing a whole lot. You put this race in the three-quarter mark of the season, I might not like as much media as we have. But right now, at the time it’s fresh and kind of reviving. Yeah, looking forward to the whole week. Great weather compared to Charlotte. Palm trees and race cars. If you want to take your kids to the beach, you can. Just kind of a relaxing week, even though you got a lot to do.
This part of your career, what is the driving force for you?
“That’s a great question. This is my 15th Daytona 500 Media Day, so… It feels like yesterday was the first one. I think just keeping in shape and feeling young. I still feel young. I was up at 6:30 this morning working out in the gym. When we go on vacation, my wife and I, we just got back from Mexico, and we got up between 6:00 and 6:15 every day, worked out for an hour, then started our day. I just feel really good. I’m eating well. Feel like I’m in really good shape that keeps me going. Also, kind of a point in my career where I feel like I’m blessed to continue to do what I do. I’ve been in this sport for a long time, had some success. There’s still success that I feel like I can have. So, I think that’s what keeps me striving and enjoying it. I just still feel like I got a lot left to prove, a lot of things to accomplish. One of those things to accomplish is being in the sport for six, seven more years. I want to win a race with my son there. There’s different things that I still want to accomplish. Yeah, I feel good. I’m blessed to be able to do it. I think that’s one of the things I’ve really kind of honed in on since my Roush career ended and my Hyak career started. I’ve just been super fortunate.
(Question about family and being a NASCAR driver.)
“Leaving the family at home is tough, but also think about it in different ways. Also think we’re very fortunate that my work schedule is going to be a Saturday-Sunday. I don’t have to work Monday through Friday. I get to spend a massive amount of time with my family. Yes, leaving them on the weekend is tough, but I know that if I had a 9:00 to 5:00, there’s a big portion of my time that I definitely wouldn’t get to see my family, right? I look at it a couple different ways. At least that helps it settle with me a little bit more. And I get to bring them a lot. I bring them to more than half the races. It is tough leaving, especially for the first time. I remember just leaving. You’re like, Dang. Then you’re calling to check in all the time. Especially now that Stetson is a little bit older, it’s awesome when you get home because they watched you race, they figure out what’s going on, they kiss you bye, then as soon as you get home, they are pumped to see you. That makes it okay.
The new Chevy body, do you know what to expect yet as far as what it’s going to be like pushing on the track, any of that stuff?
“I think it’s going to be easier for the Chevys to push. I never felt like I had an issue pushing or being pushed by other Chevys. I assume it’s going to be better. I mean, I think overall I just want it to be faster. The Ford obviously seems pretty fast in qualifying. There’s a couple Chevys that will lay down some laps. If I could just have a little bit more raw speed, I think it would be better. We’ll find out where we stack up here in a minute. I think pushing and stuff should be easier. I don’t really see it being that big of a difference.
(No microphone.)
“I’ve kind of put myself in bad spots, like speed on pit road.”
Regarding The CrossFit Open
“Thought you were talking about the Duels tomorrow. I haven’t been doing strictly CrossFit. I love watching it. If it’s a workout where I’m like, okay, not long ago, maybe not last year, the year before, they had the alternating snatches, burpee over the box. I can do 50-pound dumbbell snatches all day long. The weight wasn’t too outrageous, so I got to do exactly what they were doing. I love that.”
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