By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
The story of recent years for Roush-Fenway Racing has been, “When are you going to turn the corner?” For Ricky Stenhouse Jr., he is tired of hearing the question.
The narrative surrounding the Concord, North Carolina, based organization over recent years has been of reorganization. Once fielding five cars in NASCAR Cup, two Xfinity teams and at one point a truck team, the organization is down to two Cup teams – fielded by Stenhouse and Ryan Newman.
“Oh, I’ve been over it,” Stenhouse said. “Yeah. You always want it to be quicker. I think there are times that we’ve had really, really good runs and there are times that we’ve had quite the opposite, and I think that’s the frustrating part is when you go to one race track and you’re really good, and then you go back to another race track and can’t seem to find that same speed.
“I think we’re getting better at that, for sure. You always want it to be overnight, but when all the other cars and teams are trying to do the same thing and continue their path of progression, it makes that task difficult.
The veteran driver recognizes that righting the ship is tough, but he believes recent runs at Kansas are showing that the organization is building the right things. For Stenhouse, the goal is to make sure they are putting everything together each weekend.
While the question is growing old, Stenhouse knows that the guys in the shop are working hard, but sometimes questions if they are working on the right things. During Monday morning debriefs, time is dedicated so Newman and Stenhouse understand what the team is working on.
“We even have a segment of our debriefs on Monday to kind of go over and let at least us drivers know because that was one thing I wanted to know was, ‘Hey, what are we working on?’,” Stenhouse said. “So we have a whole section of our meetings that let us drivers know exactly what they’re working on and I think that’s been really beneficial to let us talk about the importance of some of those things that we’re working on and then also just to know that, ‘Hey, we’re working on it.’”
Bringing Newman back to Roush-Fenway has been beneficial for Stenhouse. Because Newman makes minimum mistakes behind the wheel, Stenhouse is starting to learn from Newman’s driving style.
“I feel like he always gets good finishes out of his cars even if they’re not good and that’s something that I’ve always kind of struggled with,” he said about Newman. “I’ve always tried to take a 15th-place car and make it an eighth-place car, and sometimes you just have to sit back and make small adjustments, keep your track position and get the best finish out of it that you can.
“That’s something that I feel like I’m starting to learn from Ryan when it comes to actual driving things, but in team meetings and things like that with his schooling and background that he has I feel like he helps bridge that gap between him and I and our engineers and what we’re working on, so it’s been a really good start to the year as far as teammates go, and I kind of knew that going in – that I felt it was going to be beneficial, but I had never really worked with him before as far as teammates go, so our relationship outside of the car is really good.”
Overall, the goal for Stenhouse and Roush-Fenway Racing is to become more consistent each weekend over the summer stretch.