Ricky Stenhouse Jr ‘pumped up’ as he aims for second Daytona 500 win

Daytona 500 weekend is approaching and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. He wants to engrave his name further in history.

Stenhouse, the winner of the 2023 race, would become the 13th driver to take home the Daytona 500 checkered flag twice.

After laying low for several months after the season started, Stenhouse is “excited” to return to competitive racing.

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“I’m ready to go. My team, working with our team, we’ve done a lot of good things and everybody’s ready to go,” Stenhouse said in a recent interview with Fox News Digital.

Stenhouse’s victory three years ago didn’t exactly change his view of himself as a driver, but he knows the Daytona 500 is where legacies are created.

“I think that changed the way a lot of fans saw me as a driver. So, when you put the Daytona 500 champion next to your name, that’s something we strive for,” he said. “I mean, I ran my first 500 in 2012, and it took me until 2023 to get to that point. It was a big win for a small team like ours. I felt like that really pushed us to have a great season that year, and I still feel like we got momentum from that. Even though last season wasn’t the season we wanted, we’re still going to get to 500 this year with confidence that we’re going to get to 500. Shot to win.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the #47 Kroger/Cottonelle Chevrolet, drives during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series 65th Annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 17, 2023 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)

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Since then, Stenhouse has won just one race: the 2024 YellaWood 500 at Talladega. Winning in NASCAR isn’t easy, of course, and it’s a constant mind game for everyone in the sport.

“It’s a lot like golf, you know, in a good season there’s two, three wins, right? You’re going to have guys that fall into those five and six categories, but there aren’t that many of them. You’re going to see guys in the top 10 making a living, right? It’s tough,” Stenhouse said. “But I think for us, Hyak and our team, we have 35 employees, we’re a small team, we kind of know our place, we know our resources, we know what we have.

“If we get into the top 15 on a weekly basis, that will be a home run for us. But I think that’s what motivates us, keeps us going, keeps us from falling down, every week is a different track, a different track. And if it’s a bad week, you just have to pack your things and move on to the next one.”

So how do they avoid this bad week? Better yet, how do they have a successful week?

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the No. 47 Kroger/Cottonelle Chevrolet, celebrates with his team after winning the NASCAR Cup Series 65th Annual Daytona 500 race at Daytona International Speedway on February 19, 2023 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

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“You need a car that you can drive, you can push, you can push people, you can maneuver left and right really fast, you can be comfortable. If you need to go up the track, down the track, do the blocks,” Stenhouse said. “But you also have to have a good strategy. You have to be able to save fuel, maintain your track position, and then when it comes time to get down to pit road, your pit crew has to do the job of getting you out when you enter the pitlane and making sure you’re still in the lead when you come back. And I would say that’s probably the hardest part of winning Daytona.”

“So what I would say here is, in the last three years, the four years I’ve been at Daytona, that gas guy on that last pit stop has kind of been a game changer. He can buy you seconds, and there are seconds. So just put yourself in position to miss the wrecks and the chaos, you never know what’s going to happen.”

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