By Luis Torres, Staff Writer
Winning the Daytona 500 brings its perks, especially for a single-car organization like JTG-Daugherty Racing. Although most of the praise goes to Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., who won his first NASCAR Cup Series race since July 2017, history was also made in the 65th renewal of “The Great American Race.”
Daugherty became the first African-American owner to win NASCAR’s most prestigious event, but wasn’t around to see Stenhouse win big.
Due to recently having eye surgery 10 days before, the Florida sunlight bothered Daugherty, so in the best interest of himself and others, he left the 2.5-mile superspeedway well before the checkered flag.
“I got a home in Orlando and I couldn’t see while the sun was just in my eyes. Almost like it’s hyper dilated,” Daugherty explained. “Instead of bumping into and knocking everybody down all day, I just went home.”
Once the phone calls and texts kicked into full effect, Daugherty knew something special happened. Others noticed as Daugherty got a standing ovation in at the airport in Orlando. It was a key moment where Daugherty’s humility was apparent as Stenhouse’s win also ended the race team’s winless streak dating back to Watkins Glen in 2014.
Daugherty was more proud of Stenhouse’s patience in which they spoken at length before rolling into “The World Center of Racing.”
“I’ve been talking to Ricky a lot. We talked last month a little bit about being prepared and patient. Have the time to flourish as we go throughout the entire season,” said Daugherty. “He was just very calm when I was talking to him. He had just come from the gym working out and it was just a good start. We were excited and I went down, talked to some of the guys, made sure everybody had everything they needed.”
Known to be super aggressive on the superspeedways that’s drawn some ire from his competitors, Daugherty elaborated how patient Stenhouse was throughout the race-extended 212-lap event.
“Ricky was really patient. Usually he likes to charge to the front and be in the mix all day long. But I just thought he was patient,” Daugherty said of Stenhouse. “We got through those first two stages, we get down to the end of this race and you see him starting to make his move. I’m like, ‘This is great.’
“Normally we’re right in the middle of the scrum the whole time, but he just started working his way towards the front. We had a fast race…
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