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.”
No comments:
Post a Comment