Only a few days after his fourth-place finish at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. saw his day end early at Bristol Motor Speedway Sunday.
On lap 235 of 500, Matt Kenseth got loose exiting turn 2 forcing Stenhouse Jr. to checkup, Jimmie Johnson made contact with Stenhouse sending Stenhouse’s Ford spinning down into the inside wall at the entrance of turn 3 and back up the track collecting the cars of Tyler Reddick, Alex Bowman, Kurt Busch and Cole Custer. All but Busch were done for the day.
The violent crash forced NASCAR to stop the race for just over 11 minutes. Stenhouse was scored 34th.
“We just got crashed,” he said. “Our Kroger Camaro was just so good. Two weeks in a row, I feel like, we had one of the best cars I’ve had at that given racetrack.
“We were just racing hard. The No. 42 (Matt Kenseth) had to check-up and the No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson) just ran into our left rear and spun us. But it was a bummer. I felt like we had a really good shot at racing them for the win. We were getting it dialed-in there.
Starting on the inside was a little tricky on re-starts in trying to get yourself up, and we were starting to get some momentum back to the top five there and just got crashed…Hopefully our guys bring another good car to Atlanta next weekend, and we’ll go get ‘em.”
Reddick was scored 36th.
“It’s unfortunate, but it’s a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time at Bristol,” Reddick, who was making his Cup debut at Bristol said. “I saw the No. 47 get spun, and I saw him go down but then I couldn’t see him anymore. I was worried if I checked up too much I’d get caught up in it, but it didn’t matter and I got caught up in it anyway. Just a tough situation and a tough way to end our day.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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