By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. leaves Daytona International Speedway as public enemy number one amongst drivers in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series garage.
Stenhouse was the primary culprit of two major accidents that collected a majority of the field. The first incident occurred on Lap 54 when Stenhouse was pushing Brad Keselowski down the backstretch into the race leader, William Byron. The second incident occurred when Stenhouse got into the left rear quarter panel of Kyle Busch, which turned him into Byron.
“I was really bummed. The first one, the 24 blocked the 2 and from where I was sitting I thought we were gonna get to the inside of him, so I wasn’t really expecting him to check up that quick. The second one with the 18, I was just too aggressive trying to get to his left-rear, trying to get back to the lead and back out front where our Fifth Third Ford was really dominant,” Stenhouse said.
While many drivers expressed their displeasure for the way he was racing, Stenhouse punted the blame as an effort to score a victory to be locked into the Playoffs.
“It’s aggressive speedway racing. We needed to win to get in the Playoffs, so it is what it is,” Stenhouse said.
Stenhouse accepted the blame for the wrecks and was frustrated with himself after the event. With handling being an issue amongst drivers, the veteran driver believed that he had the car to win.
“We definitely brought, I feel like, the best car here in the field. For us, my car was a lot of fun to drive. Everybody else had a lot of handling issues and my car drove really good and had really good speed, so hat’s off to Jimmy Fenning and those guys and Doug Yates. We just didn’t finish it off,” Stenhouse continued.
With the two stage wins, Stenhouse sits on 16th in the points standings with Paul Menard only 36 points behind the bubble.