Ricky Stenhouse on his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing team and its performance thus far during the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season: “I feel really good about everything and my guys are working really hard. They are showing up to the racetrack prepared and are bringing a lot of confidence. We’ve set goals and I’ve got some good racetracks coming up.”
Next up for Stenhouse and the team will be World Wide Technology Raceway – a track Stenhouse truly wants to excel at come Sunday afternoon.
“I mean everybody wants to go out and win every week,” he said. “In this sport and where we are at as a team, however, that’s just not a real goal to set, right? I mean, yeah, go into the weekend wanting to compete for the win, but you have got to set realistic goals, and after last year we felt like we had big room for improvement, obviously. So we sat down and we looked at all the racetracks and we were like, ‘Alright, well, we’re going to get better at these racetracks. We need to improve just a little bit at some of these other racetracks, but we don’t need to go backwards.’
“And I feel like right now we’re doing that. I feel like all the races that we really struggled at last year, we have been way more competitive this year. The racetracks that we were good at last year, I feel like we’ve improved and we’re still good out of this year. We wanted to average 15th place, and so far we’re doing that, which is huge for us and our consistency. We are just making our cars better each week, so it’s been it’s been a fun start to the season.”
Fourteen races into the ’23 Cup season, Stenhouse is 13th in points with an average finishing position of 13.5. All things considered, he is perfectly fine with numbers.
“So far, so good,” said Stenhouse. “2017 was our best year where we got a couple of wins and finished 13th in the points. This year I feel a little more competitive than we did then. There are some races that we have upcoming that are going to be strong for us and we will be capable of winning. Coming into Gateway this weekend, that was, by far, our worst track last year. We’ve really, really struggled there. This weekend I’m coming in to finish 15th. If we can do that, I think that will be plenty ahead. You’ve got to pick and choose with what you show up at the racetrack trying to do and you just continue to get better every week.
“Like with our execution. Some races we’ve had fast cars and didn’t execute, and there’s been other races where we’ve had a little bit slower car but we executed better and got a better finish. For us, that’s the that’s the biggest thing is just getting our execution down. Obviously, we still have work to do to make sure that we’re in the playoffs. We feel really good about where we’re at, but you never know. So what we do know going into the playoffs, you have got to be consistent and you cannot not give up points when you have a good race car.”
A key element to the No. 47 team’s season is crew chief Mike Kelly, a man Stenhouse has fallen right into step with.
“He’s definitely a great team leader,” Stenhouse said. “It is so competitive in Cup now. It is wild how close these cars are. So it’s the little things that I feel will make your team strive to be better than the others. For me it is it is important to have a leader like Mike Kelly who believes in what we’re doing, believes where we’re going, but also shows the team how we’re going to get there and how we’re going to do a race weekend like this weekend at Gateway. It was a place that we struggled at last year, like I said – Mike got us pumped up. And we’re going to be good here. We will have no issues finishing inside the top 15. We’re going to be fine. That confidence and that kind of football coach kind of mentality is really important. with the way these cars are. My guys are responding really well to Mike. And me as well. I feel like Mike has more confidence in me than I have myself, so therefore it brings the confidence in myself up, so that’s been that’s been a huge, a huge blessing to our team.”
Winner of the 2023 Daytona 500 and coming off a string of seven straight finishes of 15th or better, Stenhouse talked about how important confidence can be for both him and the entire race team.
“I feel like last year I showed up to the racetrack, it was like, ‘Man, I just kind of cross my fingers. Maybe it’s going to be a good one,’” he said. “Now I show up and even if it’s not a good one, I still feel like we can finish 15th and we can find a way. That’s huge.
“The team is doing a lot of good things. I really feel like things are clicking. We got some great guys on the team. They are basically all the same guys that we struggled with last year, and so to see the success that we’re having and to see the confidence that they have in themselves is awesome. They are just they’re eager to get to the racetrack every weekend. You know, it’s not a burden to get on the airplane. So you know, we’re having a great time together. The gods are pumped up and I think we still have a lot of great things ahead. I don’t want to say we got bigger things ahead. We won the Daytona 500 to start the season. So that’s that’ pretty big! But still, we all feel we have some really good things left this year.”