DOVER, Del. — Chase Elliott earned a much-needed win on Monday afternoon in the Drydene 400 at Dover Motor Speedway, but Ricky Stenhouse Jr. felt like a winner leaving the Monster Mile.
After a dismal start to the season, Stenhouse Jr. earned a second-place finish, his best career finish at Dover and best overall since Bristol Dirt of last season.
“We needed it, bad,” Stenhouse Jr. said on pit road post-race. “We’ve had good race cars and better race cars than I feel like what we’ve shown. Feels like all of our fast races we’ve had issues. Getting crashed at the speedways, we’ve had some engine issues. All in all, it was a solid day to be able to put this together.”
The runner-up result was Stenhouse’s second top 10 of the year and came at an opportune time. The No. 47 team entered the Monster Mile 31st in points, meaning even a win wouldn’t guarantee their admittance to the playoffs (must be top 30).
💭 “We needed it, bad.”
Ricky @StenhouseJr reflects on a runner-up finish for @JTGRacing, his first since Bristol Dirt last year and first top five ever @MonsterMile. pic.twitter.com/8mGXWloUUf
— Davey Segal (@DaveyCenter) May 2, 2022
But Monday afternoon’s run was evident of Stenhouse’s theory: it’s been more circumstantial things that have held him back rather than raw speed.
“We’ve broke a driveshaft, we’ve had an engine break on us when we were running in the top 10 at Vegas, we had an engine break in practice at Phoenix which I feel like kind of hurt us for our setup and not really getting any track time,” he said. “And then the speedway races, I mean we were leading Daytona and got wrecked. Leading Atlanta, blew a tire, and we were really fast at Talladega and got caught up in that wreck. So there’s a lot of things that we can kind of look at and dissect and still feel good about. And it’s nice to finally put it all together.”
The Olive Brach, Mississippi native admitted that short tracks have been…
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