Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.'s Increased Crashing Will Probably Hurt Him at Darlington
3 months agoRicky Stenhouse, Jr. failed to post a time in qualifying after a practice crash and will start 36th in this evening's Southern 500. Stenhouse has never had much success at Darlington, only posting a single top ten in the 2022 spring race, the first Cup Series Darlington race with the Next Gen car. Although he is still on pace for his slowest season since 2014, he has had a bit of an uptick in speed and performance in recent weeks, but also a marked increase in crashing with four crash DNFs in his last seven races. It seems Stenhouse may be trying to adjust his style to increase his speed and it's backfiring, much like it has for Corey LaJoie. Since Stenhouse's team needed to make repairs to their car and he is rarely good here to begin with, it's unlikely he will have a strong run.
Source: Racing Reference
Source: Racing Reference