FANTASY NASCAR Racin

an American racing driver in NASCAR. He started in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the #17 Best Buy / Zest / Ford Fusion for Roush Fenway Racing in 2011. Stenhouse first drove for Roush in the Xfinity piloting the Citi Financial Ford in 2009. He was the 2010 Xfinity Series Rookie of the Year, and won back-to-back Xfinity Series championships in 2011 and 2012. Stenhouse began his major-league stock car racing career in the ARCA Racing Series in 2008, driving for Roush Fenway Racing. On May 10, 2008, in only his sixth race in a stock car, Stenhouse, Jr. won his first ARCA RE/MAX Series event at the Kentucky 150 at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Kentucky. He had two wins in 21 races and finished fourth in the season ranking as a rookie. For 2009, he began competing in partial schedule in the Xfinity Series at events that conflicted with the Cup schedule. He had his first Top 10 finish at Kentucky Speedway when he finished ninth. At the following race in Milwaukee, he led 46 laps in the later stages of the race and finished fifth. 2010 was an up and down year for Stenhouse.

After crashing out of four out of the first ten races of the season, Stenhouse was replaced by Brian Ickler for three races and Billy Johnson drove at Watkins Glen. After taking on veteran Mike Kelly as crew chief, Stenhouse immediately responded with a third place finish at Daytona. He proceeded to take seven top tens. Stenhouse took the ROTY award after a fourth place finish at Homestead. On May 22, 2011, Stenhouse held off charges from Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski for the final 18 laps to claim his first win in the John Deere Dealers 250 at Iowa

Speedway, his 51st start in the Xfinity Series. Stenhouse made his Cup Series debut at the 2011 Coca-Cola 600 substituting for fellow Roush teammate Trevor Bayne. Ricky finished 11th in the Wood Brothers Racing entry. Stenhouse took his second Xfinity win at Iowa in August, again holding off teammate Carl Edwards, but in a more bizarre fashion as Stenhouse's engine blew coming off of turn 4. Edwards subsequently rear ended his teammate, pushing him across the line to the win. At the end of the 2011 season, having scored sixteen top-five finishes, Stenhouse won the Xfinity Series championship by 45 points over Elliott Sadler. As 2012 kicked off he finished third at Phoenix, while a week after that Stenhouse won

his first race of 2012 at Las Vegas, winning the Sam's Town 300, holding off Mark Martin to take the checkered flag. He would also win races at Texas Motor Speedway and Iowa Speedway before suffering a run of bad luck starting at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Stenhouse would score 3 more victories at Atlanta, Charlotte, and Kansas. He once again held off Sadler to take his second consecutive Xfinity Series championship. On June 26, 2012, Roush Fenway Racing announced that Stenhouse will drive the No. 17 car in the Cup Series full-time for 2013, replacing Matt Kenseth. Trevor Bayne replaced Stenhouse in the Xfinity #6 car for 2013. Stenhouse had very little success from 2013-2015. This coincided with the struggles of Roush-Fenway Racing to provide competitive race cars. Part of

this is due to Roush losing two of his premier drivers. In 2014 long time driver Matt Kenseth left to go drive for Joe Gibbs Racing; and in 2015 Carl Edwards followed Kenseth to Gibbs. During those years Stenhouse posted only three top five finishes. 2016 saw a minor upswing in Roush-Fenways performance. Stenhouse posted four top five results with a best of second at Bristol. The news wasn't all bad for Stenhouse however; as it was revealed he has been dating fellow NASCAR CUP driver Danica Patrick for some time.... And there was also a slight uptick in the performance of his team mate Trevor Bayne this season; so there is hope Roush Fenway Racing is moving in the right direction. He only posted one top five finish each

season, with the best being a second at Bristol. He's also been pretty hard on equipment crashing often; but both he and Bayne was back with Roush in 2017. Due to it's struggles, Roush-Fenway Racing is scaled back to a two car operation for the season. Stenhouse had a break-out season in 2017. He posted first first and second win. The first came at the spring race at Talladega and the second in the summer race at Daytona. He made the Chase; but struggled and was eliminated after the second round and finished 13th in points. He and Danica Patrick also broke up after the season. Stenhouse and Bayne was back to RFR in 2018. Much like Trevor Bayne; Stenhouse had a rough year. Roush Racing still was struggling to find speed, and Stenhouses' results showed that. He was only able to post four Top 5 finishes and five Top 10's ending 18th in the points standings. Bayne was let go and

Stenhouse's new team mate for 2019 was Ryan Newman. This season was even worse than 2018. 2019 saw Stenhouse only post one Top 5 finish; it coming in the Coke 600. He also only had three Top 10 results and missed the Chase and finished 23rd in points. On August 1, 2019, Stenhouse announced he signed a contract extension with Roush Fenway Racing through 2021. However, on September 25, Roush Fenway Racing announced that Stenhouse will be replaced by Chris Buescher in 2020, with Roush using an option in their contract with Buescher. In the aftermath of the sudden dismissal from the team, which was criticized by some members of the racing community. Roush president Steve Newmark, said that,

after ten years with the team, the relationship with Stenhouse had "run its course." Little doubt that Roush decided to exercise their option after the downward slide Stenhouse had experienced over the last two years. As Buescher comes to drive for RFR; Stenhouse will go drive for JTG Daugherty Racing (the team Buescher came from) So in effect it ended up being a 'swap'. He had much the same results as the previous season with RFR. He posted three Top 5s; with a best finish of second at Talladega. He also had one additional Top 10. Most of his finishes fell between 15th and 25th. He finished 24th in points and was back with the same team again next season. Stenhouse’s season in 2021 was even worse. He was only able to muster one Top 5 finish – a second at the dirt at Bristol after most of the better equipment had crashed

out. He had two Top 10’s for the year. Stenhouse was back behind the wheel of the #47 in 2022. But, his results on the year was not any help for Stenhouse to help eliminate his nickname of "Wrecky Stenhouse". He crashed out of seven Cup races; and both of the Xfinity races he ran. He crashed out at Daytona to open the season, but finished tenth the next race at Fontana. He finished the next two races; worse than 20th; and crashed out again when the series went to Atlanta. A drivetrain issue eliminated him at COTA. Three more finishes worse than 27th happened before the series went to Talladega where he was eliminated by a crash once again. After that the team seemed to right itself as they posted a season's best finish of second at Dover; and followed that with finishes of eighth at Darlington; eighth at Kansas and seventh at

the Coke 600 at Charlotte. But things turned upside down from there as he never had a finish better than 13th the rest of the season; including seven top 20 finishes. It was a dismal year all in all for the single car team. Plans were to try and improve in 2023 and he was back with JTG-Daughtery Racing.
Stenhouse would have an impressive season for a single car team. It started off in fine fashion when he led ten laps and won the Daytona 500. His team followed that up with a 12th at Fontana. For the last couple season the JTG Daugherty team had struggled to finish inside the top 20. 2023 they

showed improvement with more top ten runs and many runs inside the top 15. He had two top five finishes, which was an improvement over the last two years. They piled up nine top tens; the most since 2017. They had 17 top 15’s and only fell out of three races. His win put him into the Championship playoffs, but runs of 16th, 23rd and tenth in the Round of 16 saw him eliminated. He finished the season 16th in points and will be back behind the wheel of the #47 in 2024. Some info from Wikipedia

Fantasy NASCAR Racing

RICHARD LYNN "RICKY" STENHOUSE - 10/02/1987