One thing is certain, if you want to be the best you have to beat the best, and standings leader Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has done just that this season. Of the championship contenders, Stenhouse is the only one with two wins (Iowa sweep), 13 top fives and 21 top 10s this season. Stenhouse sits 22 points ahead of second-place Elliott Sadler.
Stenhouse returns to Kansas – the track where he made his series debut – just after celebrating his 24th birthday on Oct. 2, to continue his momentum in his championship run after his fifth-place finish at Dover.
As Stenhouse matures with age, his confidence grows.
“I think we are in charge for sure,” Stenhouse said. “But we got to control what we do. We need to not make mistakes and bring good, fast race cars to the racetrack and I got to do a good job of keeping it out of the fence and keeping the fenders on it. So far we have done that, and I think that we have a really good shot at this championship. I think we have a race team that is pretty determined to win this thing,” Stenhouse said.
Stenhouse has one start at Kansas Speedway, where he qualified 18th, led five laps and finished sixth. His pre-race Driver Rating for this weekend is 103.5. Sadler has only one series start at Kansas, and didn’t fare as well as Stenhouse. In that 2005 event, Sadler was caught in an accident and finished 42nd.
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