NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — Ricky Stenhouse Jr. held court at the back of the Hyak Motorsports hauler Friday afternoon, feet kicked up along a row of director’s chairs. His placement in the garage was just about where we last saw him at North Wilkesboro Speedway, where he tussled with Kyle Busch at the end of last year’s NASCAR All-Star Race.
Mention of that proximity made Stenhouse smile and motion with his thumb to his right. “The trailer’s in the same spot,” he says, but it seems the altercation was a few doors down.
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The hot-button moment from last season was an All-Star Race powder keg, resulting in a $75,000 fine to Stenhouse for throwing and landing a punch that ignited a brawl among the rival crews. A year removed from that post-race fracas, the pair of one-time combatants arrived back at North Wilkesboro to open the All-Star festivities with cordiality restored and some added perspective.
“Oh yeah, we’ve talked,” Stenhouse told NASCAR.com. “I mean, I’ve apologized to him for like, ‘hey, sorry that kind of got out of hand.’ And on the other hand, he’s like, ‘yeah, it’s kind of deserving, right?’ So he knew what he did on purpose, and so I would say we both probably could have done things different, but yeah, just part of it.”
The heart of the issue stemmed from contact between the two drivers shortly after the green flag waved. Stenhouse’s No. 47 Chevrolet took the brunt of the fender-banging, and he parked his car in the Richard Childress Racing No. 8 pit stall in disgust with just two completed laps in the books.
Stenhouse ominously hinted that he’d handle the situation in post-crash interviews, and because the 0.625-mile track has no infield tunnel for pedestrian or vehicle traffic, he had the remaining 198 laps to consider his next course of action. After Busch dismounted on pit road, Stenhouse was waiting to greet him and the conversation escalated from there.
“I wouldn’t say regrets. I think I would still be fired up if I got crashed on Lap 1 again this weekend — on purpose, obviously,” Stenhouse said, looking back. “So I mean, if you get crashed on accident, it’s one thing. Crashed on purpose is a totally different thing, especially an exhibition race, not going for the win. So yeah, I mean, definitely no regrets. I think I gained a decent amount of fans out of it. It cost a little bit, but yeah, it’s part of it. I think, hopefully this year, I don’t plan on being out the first lap and plan on making the end of the race, so hopefully that all works out.”
Busch, winner of the 2017 edition of the All-Star Race, said that the two have sorted out the differences they had back then.
“I haven’t looked back on any of it, but him and I have just soft-spoken, just kind of how we were beforehand,” Busch said. “If there’s occasions where we’re next to each other at driver intros, you know, it’s no big deal. Just is what it is. Move on and put that behind us.”
One year later, the two drivers are in close quarters again — this time, with their positioning in the Cup Series Playoffs standings. After next weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 (Sunday, May 25, 6 p.m. ET, Prime Video, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the circuit will be exactly halfway through the regular season, and the competition for postseason spots is already ratcheting up.
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Stenhouse is on the plus side of the bubble, 14 points up on the provisional elimination line. The single-car team has made the most of its consistency, with no DNFs and a sixth-place result two weeks ago at Texas being the most recent of their two top 10s.
“We’re thrilled where we’re at, because I know that we’ve got more potential in our race car,” Stenhouse said. “We haven’t nearly got the speed out of our car that I feel like we have in it somewhere, so we’re continuing to look for that. We’re continuing to try and figure out how we can qualify better. That’ll make our race days go better, but we’re executing, we’re finishing races well, making sure we get to the end and capitalizing on that. So if we can get our car speed better, then I think that’ll put us right where we need to be come season end, obviously, depending on winners and things like that, but to be where we’re at right now in points, we’re definitely thrilled.”
Busch is still mired in the longest winless streak of his career, which reached 69 races since his last triumph (Gateway, 2023). He’s currently the first driver outside of the provisional 16-driver playoff field — minus-7 behind RFK Racing’s Ryan Preece — and though he’s cooled since an early-season stretch of three consecutive top-10 finishes (Atlanta, Circuit of The Americas, Phoenix), he’s been encouraged by the attention to details so far.
“I mean, I would presume it’s just a lot of little things, you know?” Busch said. “So that’s basically what you’re dealing with in this day and age — just so many little details. If you can find 100 small, tiny details, then that’s going to all add up. So guys at the shop have been doing a good job and working on all of that, whether it’s car build or little things in the setups and whatnot. Then, that’s where it’s coming from.”
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