‘Wrecky’ no more — How Stenhouse got to his first Daytona 500 win

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is a two-time NASCAR Xfinity Series champion, but since his tenure in the Cup Series began, he’s been the butt of fans’ jokes for his tendency to be involved in accidents.

Stenhouse was a top NASCAR prospect a decade ago. He won consecutive Xfinity championships in 2011 and 2012 for Roush Fenway Racing before graduating to the Cup level and replacing Matt Kenseth in the No. 17 Ford.

But his decade of Cup experience has been tumultuous, to say the least — fans have given him the nickname “Wrecky Stenhouse” and “Ricky Stinkhouse” because he always seemed to be involved in crashes, one way or another.

Perhaps none of these instances were more famous than when NASCAR returned to action after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down. On the first lap of the first race to occur during the pandemic at Darlington Raceway, he spun himself out on the exit of Turn 2 and immediately ended his day after the two-month hiatus.

Stenhouse was perhaps a meme-able driver because of his frequent accidents and his relationship with his former girlfriend, Danica Patrick, who also tended to wreck a lot. But here’s the thing: he was only able to be as fast as the horse he was riding.

When he joined Roush’s Cup program, he wasn’t clicking off the high finishes as often as he’d have liked. When he won his first Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway in May 2017 — his fifth season in Cup — he’d only 21 top 10s. Roush struggled through the mid-2010s as the team endured the departure of generational talents like Kenseth and Carl Edwards.

The potential for Stenhouse to be a regular contender seemed to be there. He won twice in 2017, yet two years later, he lost his ride to former Roush Xfinity champion Chris Buescher. Stenhouse signed with JTG Daugherty Racing for 2020 and beyond, and in his first event with the No. 47 team, he won the 2020 Daytona 500 pole.

He’s now a veteran in the Cup Series and is reunited with former crew chief Mike Kelley, who led him to two Xfinity titles. Perhaps at the beginning of his Cup career, he was pushing his equipment harder than it could handle, thus causing himself to end up in the garage before the finish. But as he’s gotten older, he’s fine-tuned his race craft and established himself as a more consistent and dependable driver.

“I think this whole offseason Mike just preached how much we all believed in each other,” Stenhouse said. “They left me a note in the car that said they believe in me and to go get the job done tonight. I made a few mistakes. We were able to battle back.”

JTG isn’t a championship contender. The team was seemingly always in the picture for checkered flags when A.J. Allmendinger was driving the No. 47 at road courses. But its only playoff berth came in 2014 when Allmendinger got his first victory at Watkins Glen.

The organization has been in the Cup Series since the late 2000s. Although it isn’t the powerhouse juggernaut that Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing is, it has become a respectable squad that has attracted veterans such as Allmendinger, Bobby Labonte, and Marcos Ambrose over the years.

If Stenhouse had driven for Roush when the team was at its peak in the early 2000s, his career trajectory might look significantly better than what it is today. He’s kind of the equivalent of what Romain Grosjean was during his Formula 1 career: fast but prone to wrecking and driving a car slower than what his talent could handle.

The Olive Branch, Mississippi native now has three career Cup wins — all on superspeedway tracks. Assuming there aren’t more than 16 winners in the regular season, he’ll make the NASCAR playoffs for the second time in his career.

All three of NASCAR’s national series had their race end under caution at Daytona International Speedway this weekend. The lone exception was the ARCA Menards Series event, which saw the Indiana-based fence construction business owner Greg Van Alst pull off an emotional and unexpected win for the ages with his team of volunteer crew members.

As they did in their respective series in 2022, Zane Smith and Austin Hill won the season opener on the 2.5-mile oval. Smith looks to defend his Truck Series title, while Hill hopes to make the Championship 4 in the Xfinity Series after ending up sixth in the standings last year.

NASCAR returns to Southern California next weekend for the final race at the two-mile version of Auto Club Speedway. The track will undergo a reconfiguration to a short-track oval that will take at least two years to construct, but it will retain the curved frontstretch as a part of the new track.