February 19, 2023 | By Lee Spencer

JTG Daugherty's belief in driver propels Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to Daytona 500 win

DAYTONA BEACH, FLA.—After five seasons without a win, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. returned to Victory Lane for the grandest prize of his career on Sunday—the Daytona 500.

Under the direction of his good friend and crew chief Mike Kelley, the driver of the No. 47 JTG Daugherty Chevrolet entered the season with renewed energy. Kelley left Stenhouse a simple two-word message: We believe.

The 35-year-old racer didn’t lead a lap until the final stagewhen the race went into overtime, but Stenhouse knew the team was behind him.

“This whole off-season Mike just preached how much we all believed in each other,” said Stenhouse after his third career win and his second at Daytona. “They left me a note in the car that said they believe in me and to go get the job done tonight. I made a few mistakes. We were able to battle back.

“Man, this is unbelievable. This was the site of my last win back in 2017. We've worked really hard. We had a couple shots last year to get a win and fell short. It was a tough season, but man, we got it done, Daytona 500.”

Joey Logano finished second followed by Christopher Bell, Chris Buescher and Alex Bowman. However, there was some confusion at the end of the race. Logano believed initially he had won.

“Second is the worst, man,” Logano said. “You're so close. Leading the white flag lap there, I was up front. Kyle (Larson) gave me a good push and, yeah, you're watching in the mirror and you're three wide across there. I felt like the three wide was going a hurt a lane; looked like Kyle was getting pushed ahead, and then Ricky started getting pushed ahead.

“I knew if I went to the bottom my car didn't handle good enough. I already got pushed off the bottom once and I thought, if I go down there I'm probably going to get wrecked, and I don't know if I can get down there in time to throw the block and so I didn't want to wreck my car either.”

The Fords were dominant throughout the race. Brad Keselowski led a race-high 42 laps and won the first stage. There were 52 lead changes among 21 drivers.

Drama didn’t ensue until Lap 118 when Kevin Harvick tagged Tyler Reddick coming out of Turn 4. The incident collected Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott and Erik Jones in the process. After multiple repairs, Blaney continued but Elliott and Jones retired for the day.

Buescher had the lead followed by Logano. After the pair traded places, Ross Chastain took the lead and won the second stage. The race went green for two laps before the fourth caution for debris.

After a long green-flag run, pit stops began on Lap 176. When Stenhouse pitted on Lap 179, he was busted for speeding. After a pass-thru penalty on Lap 181, he was mired in traffic.

As the drivers cycled back to the lead lap, Michael McDowell ran into the back of Ryan Preece, who slid down the track and back up into the wall in Turn 2. Harvick, Martin Truex Jr., Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs were collected in the melee--along with Jimmie Johnson making his NASCAR Cup return.

With four laps remaining, Austin Dillon pushed his new teammate Kyle Busch to the lead. Busch appeared to be destined for victory until Daniel Suarez spun coming to the white flag lap to send the Great American Race into its first overtime.

Busch retained the lead with Logano behind him and Dillon on the inside. As the field headed for the backstretch, William Byron nailed the back of the No. 3 Chevy and collected Dillon on Lap 203.

Larson lined up alongside Stenhouse on the front row as the race returned to green on Lap 211. Christopher Bell and Logano rode in row two ready to push the lead cars. Logano pushed Stenhouse to the lead before moving alongside with Larson in the middle.

With a push from Bell, Stenhouse was in the lead as a wreck ignited inside the pack and collected Larson, Busch, Bubba Wallace, Aric Almirola, Keselowski, AJ Allmendinger and Cindric. NASCAR called a caution, reviewed the tape and declared Stenhouse the winner. Allmendinger was scored sixth followed by Suarez, Blaney, Chastain, Riley Herbst and Travis Pastrana.

“I went to the bottom, the 8 and the 22 got a huge run,” Stenhouse said of Busch and Logano. “The 5 (Larson) split me in the middle, but another fellow dirt racer with Bell gave me a good shot down the little short chute into 1, and we were out front when the caution came out. We were out of fuel so the fuel light was going crazy.”

Still, he was able to cruise to the start-finish line—but couldn’t do a burnout because his car had run out of gas. So Stenhouse decided to celebrate by climbing the fence as the crew ran through the front stretch to join him.

Kelley was near tears as he finally came down from the pit box. After working on and off with Stenhouse since 2010, most recently the general manager of the team before being charged with leading the effort this year, winning the Daytona 500 was a pivotal moment in the pair’s revival.

“You have no idea what this means to me,” Kelley said. “I watched my best friend go through a lot of (crap) the last couple of years and to just get a chance for us to put something together…

“The weekend started off really tough. We didn’t qualify really good. He sped in the Duels—and then he sped tonight with 25 to go. But you do what you need to do and I can’t tell you how proud I am of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. tonight.”

After five losing seasons for Stenhouse—and not qualifying for the Playoffs since 2017—a lot of leaders might have given up on the driver. Kelley was not one of them.

“Not once,” Kelley said with conviction. “He took me to a place I’ve never been and I promised I would take him back.”