Ricky Stenhouse Jr: High banks drifter

"It was great to see Ricky Stenhouse get a win, but it was also really great to see Roush Racing get a win," said Mark Martin, a man who lined up 882 times over 19 seasons in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.

This was a few days after Stenhouse won at Talladega two months ago, putting Roush Fenway into NASCAR's postseason for the first time since 2014.

"The organization has suffered through some really tough times. It's really hard to get back [to being] competitive once you get shuffled down the deck a ways. They're definitely running good, so I hope that they can sustain that and continue to be top 10 material."

A surging Stenhouse and team owner Jack Roush and company have been able to do just that. Now at critical mass, Stenhouse and his No. 17 Ford Fusion, after three laps of overtime – not to mention 14 waves of the caution flag - crossed the finish line at Daytona International Speedway a mere 0.21s ahead Clint Bowyer to win the Coke Zero 400. His second restrictor plate triumph in eight races proved he and the Roush Fenway Racing organization have those 57/64ths of an inch stamped pieces of aluminum sorted out.

On his way to the 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway to put in 267 laps as part of this Saturday night's Quaker State 400 – round #18 of the 36-round Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series – Racer pulled the superspeedway hot shoe aside and asked him what has been something of a season of dreams for both himself and the entire Roush organization.

You've won two Cup races thus far this season, and everybody knows just how hard it is to win a Cup race. Look at all the big-name guys who haven't even made the Chase yet.

RICKY STENHOUSE JR: It is hard to win these races. For me, it's been a long time coming, and a lot of work in progress to get that first win. We've looked at all aspects of our race team trying to make sure we try not to miss any part of it, so that's really been breaking everything down and making sure we have it right. We felt like our best opportunities to win are the short tracks and the superspeedways, so we put a lot of focus on that.

We've had Jimmy Fenning, who has been a long-time employee of Roush, been the crew chief on cars, won championships and won a bunch of races. It's cool to have him overseeing our speedway cars. He pays attention to all the details and we have to go out and get the job done as a team, but he definitely helped get us those two wins by having fast race cars.

It was also pretty easy to see just how fast your No. 17 Ford was on the Daytona high banks. That's really saying something when all the cars are just so even.

RS: It is. You go to a speedway race and you feel like you have a really fast car, but then when it's all said and done, somebody beside you in the race could have qualified a second slower than you, which is crazy. That's the nature of the track. All of us are in the draft and anything can happen, but you can be confident when you have a fast race car and can make moves, and do things by myself sometimes and get away with it. That's what we were able to do at Daytona. We lost the track position, but I was able to lead the lineup on the bottom and drive all the way back to the front from 15th , or 17th, or wherever I was. It's hard to do that when your car is not fast. That played a key role into it, even though we're all in one big drafting session.

How hard is it to be patient in a draft like that? You see all these cars in front of you and you know where you want to be, yet you're boxed in deep and trying to keep an eye on all of the mirrors.

RS: It's crazy. There were a lot of cautions in that race and a lot of wrecks, and I was getting frustrated. Sometimes it's like you're three-wide, and you're in a traffic jam, and you want to go and sometimes you just can't. You can only go so fast and you're hitting the car in front of you, and they're hitting the car in front of them, and for whatever reason you're getting held up and you're almost boxed in. When you're three-wide, you can't really go anywhere. Four-wide at Daytona works for a split second, but it doesn't work for a long time. That racetrack is a lot different than Talladega even though they're both superspeedways.

So you get impatient, and then you just start doing things that aren't the smartest, and that's what ends up causing crashes. People get impatient, and there was a lot of that going on [last] Saturday night. For me it was, like you said, a chess match. You're looking at different moves and you're calculating when you want to pass somebody and how you're going to pass them; you're looking at the moves you're going to make to slow their car down, but not slow yours down at the same time. And when I'm out there leading, my spotter is telling me everything I need to know about what's going on behind me so I can make a decision of what I want to do. It's a huge team effort.

While you were sitting in the car during that eight-minute red flag period, did you feel that you had a real good shot at winning the race?

RS: 100 percent. I actually let my mind wander to what it would be like to win it. I normally try not to do that, but the red flag was sitting there, and we only had a couple laps left, and I knew we were going to restart up front. I was a little nervous about the damage that I had from Kyle Larson getting into us. Luckily, it wasn't enough to affect anything at all. I was sitting there thinking, 'Hey, we got a really good shot at winning our second race of the year right here.' I didn't have a plan on that restart, because speedway racing... it's always changes.

When Kyle Larson's car went up in the air in front of you, could you see all that? It was surprising that you and your car got out of that pretty much unscathed.

RS: I had tire marks going up the hood of my car from when he started getting up in the air. I'm glad he got high enough for me to go underneath him, and I'm glad he didn't get high enough to keep flipping. I'm glad his car set back down. We were able to sneak through there and just get a little bit of damage out of it. That was very close. We had a lot of very close class throughout that race, like when Kyle Busch spun out. Kevin Harvick crashed and spun out in front of us. We missed a few of them, and that definitely played a role in us being there at the end.

You guys still have some work to do on the mile-and-a-half tracks, and those are so prevalent on NASCAR schedule. What do you think you and the team need to work on to be more competitive?

RS: It just takes a lot to figure out. We're working on building new cars, and working on trying to figure out exactly what we need in our race cars to be faster. We think we know, but we're continuing to try and figure it out to see if we can get it. Coming into Kentucky, it wasn't a great race for us last year, but it was a good race for my teammates. The only reason it wasn't a good race for me was because I hit the wall and caused an issue. Last year at Kentucky I ran in the top 10 quite often, so we have some good notes to look at.

All that notwithstanding, your consistency has been really good this season. You've been in the top 10 seven times (including Michigan, above). Encouraging for you and the team?

RS: It is. We've definitely gotten more top 10s than at any point in our career at this point in the season. We're looking to continue that. Top 10s are where you want to be. If you can run there, you can be in contention to get top fives and get more wins. We're getting there. We're close. There are tracks we struggle at and we know which ones and the characteristics of those tracks, but it's been an unbelievable start to the season. But we still have a long ways left. We're just barely at halfway. We don't want to slack off any, and we want make sure we continue our progress and don't look backwards.

RS: Yes, getting Jack back into Victory Lane was one of the things that I had on my list of things to check off and we were able to do that at Talladega. To get him another win was awesome. Mark Martin called me this off-season and talked to me a little bit. He's a great supporter of Jack, and he's been with him for so long. I think was trying to give me some pointers and things, and was like, 'Hey, if I can ever help you, let me know and we'll try and get Jack back into Victory Lane.'

Unfortunately, Jack missed Daytona. He was out taking his grandkids to see Mount Rushmore. [But] he was super-excited that we won, and it was cool to see a pep in his step after we got that first win. I think after this second win he'll have a little bit more energy than he even had after that first win, so that's cool.

You're all locked in for the playoffs, but a lot of big names aren't. Things could get desperate for some, and it has to be interesting for you to watch what's playing out before you right now.

RS: There are a lot of things that are going to be interesting. That last playoff spot, if it comes down to points, it's going to be intense. They're all so close, and you can gain a lot of points at a track even without getting a win. That'll be real interesting to see coming down to the end. I'm glad I'm not going to be in that conversation. I feel like we are solidly in, and we're going to continue to try and gain points for the Chase.