Photo – Sean Gardner/Getty Images
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. earned his season-best finish at his best track on the Sprint Cup Series circuit with a runner-up performance in Sunday’s postponed Bass Pro Shops NRA Race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
Stenhouse’s second place finish after 500 laps in Thunder Valley was the best finish for Roush Fenway Racing as an organization since teammate Trevor Bayne wheeled to a fifth place run at Bristol in April.
“It wasn’t from a lack of hard work and being lucky a few times,” said Stenhouse. “We really wanted to get this Bryan Clauson tribute car in victory lane. It just wasn’t meant to be today. We made our car a lot faster throughout the race and came from two laps down to get back on the lead lap. We missed some wrecks and gave it all we had. I thought we were matching the 4 car there lap for lap, but he got away from us and we had to restart sixth there on that last restart, but it was an honor to drive this car.”
All of the fans that came out this weekend. This place was pretty packed last night (Saturday). Thanks to all the fans that were able to stay around. I thought the track was really good. You could run the bottom. You could run the top. We just wanted one more spot.”
Looking ahead on the schedule, Stenhouse says he felt Bristol was his team’s best opportunity to snatch a victory and send them into the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Now, he’ll have just three more races at Michigan, Darlington and Richmond to make it happen.
“That’s all we can think about is getting ourselves a win,” added Stenhouse. “We’ve been OK at Michigan. We had a flat tire. We’ve been OK at Darlington and Richmond even, so we’ve got to keep our confidence in our ability to make sure we’re making all the good changes and not making mistakes, and staying with it throughout the race like we did right there.”
It’s not surprising that Stenhouse’s run on Sunday afternoon came at the “World’s Fastest Half-Mile.” With six top-five finishes to his credit, three of those have come at Bristol dating back to his career-best finish of second in March 2014, while following through a year later with a fourth in April 2015 at the historic concrete oval.
“We really wanted to get that win this time at Bristol,” he said. “We knew this was probably our best shot. We just struggled all weekend. It was a tough weekend from an emotional side and out here driving this race car and getting it fast, but thanks to all the hard work from my guys we were able to salvage a really good finish.”
While Stenhouse’s third top-five finish of the season was important from a confidence standpoint, the two-time XFINITY Series champion ran a commemorative No. 17 Fastenal Ford Fusion paint scheme remembering friend and former XFINITY Series driver Bryan Clauson.
Clauson died at age 27 from injuries suffered during an Aug 6 accident in the Belleville Midget Nationals in Kansas.
The Olive Branch, Mississippi native says the last few weeks have been emotionally draining between racing and coping with the loss of his friend.
“I’m telling you, Saturday night watching the race from Belleville, as soon as it happened, I texted our agent and told him that he needed to figure some things out before anything was announced,” said Stenhouse. “I watched it, the ambulances hadn’t even got there, and I went ahead and told them that he needed to figure out a way to get to Kansas because I just had a feeling that it wasn’t good.
“So it started Saturday night and went through obviously a roller coaster that whole night. I was getting updated throughout the night. I was up until about 2:00, 2:30 that morning talking to him and trying to figure out what was going on.
“It’s definitely been tough, but I think going to Knoxville and being with his family, being with his fiancé and being with friends that we all had a great time together, you know, talking about it, talking through things and talking about all the good things that Bryan did and his organ donation really helped a lot of us really feel comforted with what he was still doing after the fact.
“The service Wednesday I mean Thursday this past week was one of the toughest days that I think I had. But again, just being there and telling stories really I think helped us all get through it.”
From Bristol, Stenhouse will prepare for a Celebration of Life for Clauson this Wed., Aug. 24. Stenhouse says he plans to speak.
“I mean, it’s been so all over the place with getting everything organized, but I’m sure I will,” he added.
“We’re going to get there I think it’s going to be cool starting around 1:00, just going to have friends and family tell stories, good stories that we had with Bryan throughout the years, and that’ll start at 1:00, and then they’re actually going to have a race at Kokomo, so hot laps will start at 6:30, and then a friend of ours that was going to play Bryan and Lauren’s wedding is actually going to play after the race for all the fans and friends that are going to be out there.
“Kokomo was Bryan’s favorite place to race every Sunday night, so it’ll be special.
“His fiancé Lauren has been a rock getting everybody I mean, she’s supporting everybody even though you would think it would be the other way around. She’s really helped a lot of people. We’re really looking forward to getting there Wednesday, and again, just being with all the racing family that we were able to always be around.
“I know Bryan was watching and wanting us to win tonight, and we gave it all we had. He was trying to run 200 races. Somebody asked me, how do you feel coming to here and racing, and talking with Tim, Bryan’s dad, he was like, man, I feel like Bryan is probably mad at me right now because I’m not at home working on a midget to get it ready to go racing because Bryan, all he wanted to do was race. That’s what he was doing, and leading one of the biggest races of the year.
“If he had to choose a way to go out, I feel like that was the way he wanted.”