By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
Despite a 25th place finish in the Tales of the Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series entry is focusing on New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
“It’s the worst Playoff race I’ve ever had. Actually, it was only the first Playoff race I ever had, but it did not go according to plan,” said Stenhouse. “Luckily, with the way the wins and the bonus points that we got, we’re still right there and still have a really good shot at it.”
From the time the team rolled the car off the truck on Friday, they has to battle an ill-handling car throughout the weekend. Despite the disappointing effort, Stenhouse is happy to be back at New Hampshire where he feels he can build off his 14th place finish from July.
“We had a decent race last time we were here and I feel like over my race here we’ve had some fast cars, so I look forward to the strategy and things that we can play come Sunday. First off, we’ve got to get driving good throughout the weekend, but it makes New Hampshire and Dover very, very important,” said Stenhouse.
The No. 17 was one of the few organizations allowed to test at Chicago earlier in the season. The team felt they were in good shape following the test. The team spent this week trying to figure out what went wrong from the test session to race conditions. Although the meetings were tough, Stenhouse believes the meetings were productive.
“I’m just very fortunate that we really had some good meetings that really opened a lot of people’s eyes and really, I think, got everybody working even harder than what they already were,” said Stenhouse.
Although the finish was not what the team wanted, they sit only four points away from Austin Dillon, who has the final spot to advance to the next round.
“We keep our head up because we’re only four points out, so I think that’s the key message around the shop this week was we had, by far, the worst race we could have ever thought of having and we’re still close. I think that’s the key,” Stenhouse stated about keeping the spirit of the team up.
Although the playoffs started off on the wrong foot for Stenhouse, he understands who he has to race against this weekend at New Hampshire to be able to advance to the next round.