Nothing’s certain
But Stenhouse hopes for more Talladega success
TALLADEGA, Ala. — Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was all over the leaderboard this past Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
His Roush-Fenway Racing team had been working hard throughout the afternoon to salvage a strong performance in the opening race of the second round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, but a speeding penalty was threatening to ruin the chance. Stenhouse had one restart to save his day, and he picked off six cars to squeak out a 13th-place finish.
His reward? Well, Stenhouse is still last among the 12 drivers in the playoffs. But Sunday’s race is at Talladega Superspeedway, and Stenhouse is probably the only driver looking forward to it.
Stenhouse scored the first victory of his Cup Series career at Talladega in May, and he followed it with another win in July at Daytona International Speedway. He figures his best shot at making it into the third round of the playoffs is landing an automatic berth with yet another victory in a race with restrictor plates in the engines.
“I know we’re going to have a fast car. I’m not really worried about the speed in our car,” said Stenhouse, who is in the playoffs for the first time. “The biggest thing for me is you’ve got to have these things play out exactly right. I feel like the last two played out really well for us. I feel like we’re capable of doing it, but I’m definitely just not counting on it.”
Stenhouse has to have a backup strategy because there are so many variables when restrictor plates are involved. It takes skill, precision, being in the right place at the right time and luck in such races.
For the first three years of this playoff format, Talladega’s fall race was the last of a round, making it an elimination event. Now its placement in the playoffs takes the pressure off of Stenhouse to win or else.
If he can’t win the race, he’ll take what he can get in stage points. In the overall standings, Stenhouse is just 10 points behind Jamie McMurray at the cutoff line.
“If I can win two stages and get 20 points, I could vault ahead of the cutoff line,” Stenhouse said. “I think you’re going to see at least
10 of us racing really hard for that.”
Martin Truex
Jr. leads the points standings as he continues a dominant season, and his win at Charlotte moved him into the third round. That victory was a relief for Truex, who was eliminated from the playoffs a year ago at Talladega after an engine failure. An accident during the spring race here led to a 35th-place finish.
“There are so many unknowns at Talladega, and you can run up front all day long and finish 25th,” Truex said. “You can run up front and run 20 laps and get destroyed. You just never know. There is so much out of your control. To go there and not have to worry about all those things is definitely a good feeling.”
Kenseth’s new ride?
Veteran driver Matt Kenseth has no job lined up for next season, but he has a backup plan should there be no seat for him in NASCAR.
“You know, I was thinking about maybe driving a school bus,” Kenseth said Friday. “I thought it’d be fun. I drive the kids to school every morning, and I thought it’d be fun driving them home, too. I think I’ll be OK. I think they’ll be able to eat either way.”
Kenseth’s proclamation, which came with a straight face, was the 2003 Cup Series champion’s latest attempt at avoiding the topic of his future. He is being replaced by Erik Jones at Joe Gibbs Racing next season and has yet to land a ride for 2018. So with just six races remaining, it’s a critical time for Kenseth to put together a plan.
But Kenseth said he won’t distract from his championship chances by publicly discussing job prospects.
“The school bus thing is appealing,” he said. “I said a few weeks ago I wasn’t going to talk about next year anymore as long as we’re alive in the playoffs. We’re certainly not one of the favorites right now — we haven’t done the things we wanted to do — but we’re certainly still alive.”
Kenseth is winless this season and ninth in the standings with two races to go before the playoffs are cut to eight drivers. The two-time Daytona 500 winner deadpanned that he’s not romanticizing about Sunday’s race possibly being his final restrictor-plate event.
“I think except for the very first time you come here, every time you come here you think it possibly could be your last race here,” Kenseth joked. “I don’t really feel any different today than any other time except for the first time I came here.”