Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is all fired up. And that probably isn’t good news for his NASCAR Nationwide Series rivals – especially heading to Iowa Speedway where the Mississippi competitor scored his first victory in May.
Here’s the deal:
• Stenhouse retook the championship lead by three points from Reed Sorenson at Lucas Oil Raceway. That’s good, right? Well, sort of. First in points is nice for bragging rights but this season has been the definition of “temporary” – there have been three different points leaders after the last three races.
• Stenhouse had victory in hand in Indy, where he led 198 of 204 laps before 2010 NNS champion Brad Keselowski nudged his way past on a late restart. Adding insult to injury, post-race video dropped Stenhouse from second to third in the final order.
• At Nashville he watched Roush Fenway teammate Carl Edwards capture the coveted Sam Bass signature Gibson guitar trophy. And in Michigan in June, Stenhouse led 38 laps among a field of seven full-time double-duty drivers – as late as Lap 116 of 125 – only to lose to Edwards.
Consider then that Stenhouse, actually an upbeat, outgoing fellow, is more than motivated; perhaps as much more so than any of his points chasing fellow competitors. Statistics say he’s going to be tough to dislodge from the top spot – especially being able to run heads up with the likes of Edwards and Keselowski.
He’s on series-best streaks of top fives (three) and top 10s (four). Loop Data shows Stenhouse with an overall Driver Rating of 108.8 – the only series points eligible driver in triple digits. In May, he topped five different Loop Data categories en route to a second best Driver Rating 128.
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