Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Backs Up Bold Talk Early in 2023

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Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has backed up his talk from Auto Club Speedway.

Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. said early in the 2023 Cup Series season that he wanted to approach every race like he was winless while posting an average finish around 15th place. This comment turned heads, but Stenhouse has since backed up his talk with consistency.

The driver of the No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet Camaro currently sits 14th in the championship standings with an average finish of 14.1 to his name. He already has a win in his pocket, which currently secures a playoff spot, but he also has four top-10 finishes and two top-fives in 12 races.

“I mean, even without our win at Daytona, we’re hitting the goals that we kind of set out for, which is really nice,” Stenhouse said at Kansas Speedway during a media session. “I mean, and now that we’re hitting those, I mean, it’s easy to sit there and try and change your goals, but we want to keep trying to do that.”

The season has not gone perfectly for Stenhouse. The trip to Dover Motor Speedway is a fitting example. He and the No. 47 team felt that they had a better Chevrolet Camaro than the one that finished second behind Chase Elliott in 2022.

The team finished 15th after some struggles on pit road and during restarts. Still, the team has seen signs of progress that only help them build confidence for the rest of the regular season.

“All in all, we’re doing, what we set out to do,” Stenhouse added. “And each week that we do that, more confidence comes, and that’s been really cool to kind of go debrief on Wednesdays when we get back to the shop and look at what we did that weekend.”

There is a Specific Point Average That Stenhouse Has Circled

GettyRicky Stenhouse Jr. prepares for a race at Dover Motor Speedway.

Stenhouse wants to have an average finish of 14th-15th place, which is better than his career-best mark of 17.1 from the 2017 season. This is not the only metric by which he is judging his season.

“I mean, wanted to average around 23ish points per race,” Stenhouse added. “I think the best right now is like 30 points a race, I think somebody is averaging. So I mean, we’re close.

“I mean, I feel like [Circuit of the Americas], we had a decent car, but we stole some points at the end, right? But it’s all just based on an average, and I feel really good about what we’ve been able to… how we’ve been able to execute when we haven’t had fast cars and then when we have had really good cars.”

To Stenhouse’s point, he is not that far behind in terms of points average. Leader Ross Chastain has averaged 33.67 points through the first 12 races of the season. Christopher Bell has averaged 31.08 points while Martin Truex Jr. has averaged 30.67 points. Stenhouse has averaged 24.58 points through 12 races.

Some Potential Pitfalls Await Stenhouse & His Team

Stenhouse has delivered some strong finishes in the first 12 weeks of the season, and he has put himself in a position to accomplish his goal of posting a top-15 average finish during the 2023 season. The 12th-place finish at Kansas Speedway was only the latest example.

While Stenhouse has started the season well, he knows that there are some potential pitfalls on the horizon. There are some tracks that could create problems for JTG Daugherty Racing as it tries to maximize its points.

Next up on the schedule is a date with Darlington Raceway, which has been hit or miss. For example, Stenhouse finished eighth during the 2022 Goodyear 400, but a crash in September dropped him outside of the top 30.

The immediate schedule then continues with Charlotte Motor Speedway, World Wide Technology Raceway, Sonoma Raceway, and Nashville Superspeedway. Stenhouse had a top-10 finish in the 2022 Coca-Cola 600, but he finished outside of the top 20 at both WWTR and Sonoma. Though he recovered with a top-20 at Nashville Superspeedway.

The goal for this stretch will be less on trying to win races and more on simply trying to “stop the bleeding” as Stenhouse mentioned. Keeping consistent will be crucial for the single-car team as it prepares for a difficult summer stretch that leads into the playoffs.

“I think, looking at tracks coming up, I feel really confident for the next four or so weeks,” Stenhouse said. “But then after that, I mean, there’s a lot of things that I think will test our race team. But I think we’re up for that.”