After leading a career high 26 laps last spring at Kansas Speedway, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. battled an ill-handling Zest Ford for a majority of Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race forcing the two-time champion to settle for a 22nd– place finish.
“Not the result we wanted,” Stenhouse said. “After running so strong at Kansas last spring, we had high hopes coming into this weekend. We’ve struggled with our 1.5-mile program this year but we will keep testing and working on improving our cars.”
After advancing into the second round of knock out qualifying, the two-time Nationwide champion qualified in the 20th– place after he was forced to make two runs in the first round causing him to come up a tad short in the second round.
The start of the 267-lap race went green forcing green flag pit stops. When the caution flag waved shortly after the scheduled pit stops for the spin by the No. 15 machine, the Olive Branch, Miss. native was trapped one lap down.
After avoiding multiple accidents that occurred directly in the path of the Zest Ford, the 2013 Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year maneuvered his Ford to the take the checkered flag in the 22nd position.
Last year Stenhouse finished second in the Sprint Showdown advancing him to his first career start in the All-Star race. The Sprint Showdown will be held on Friday night this year where the top two finishers qualify for the All-Star race on Saturday night. The Sprint Showdown will be Friday at 7:15 pm on FOX Sports 1.
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