Stenhouse narrowly escapes playoff elimination: "I feel lucky"

Stenhouse entered the race holding the final position in points that would allow him to transfer to Round 2 of the NASCAR playoffs.

Thanks to his 10 playoff points and the seven points additional he earned with a fourth-place finish in Stage 1 of Sunday’s race, Stenhouse survived by a scant two points, joining 11 other drivers who still have a shot at the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship.

“I feel lucky, really. We caught the caution there (near the end of Stage 1) at the right time with a perfect amount of laps left to get Stage points and really that was turning point of the day,” said Stenhouse, who finished 19th and one lap down in the race.

“Our (car) was not anywhere close to what we needed, especially in the last two runs. I thought we were close before the last two runs and made some adjustments there and really fell off.

“All in all, like I said, I feel lucky that we had all the mistakes at Chicago and really not a good car at Chicago, Loudon or Dover but we still made it in.”

Nerve-racing finish

As the laps wound down Sunday, Stenhouse’s No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing team continued to update him on where he stood points-wise in order to transfer to the next round.

That was a lot of pressure in itself.

“At the very end, it was a little nerve-racking. When we got those Stage points that gave us a buffer,” he said. “I just felt really good when I kept looking up at the end of Stage 2 and none of the cars we were racing earned any Stage points.

“Right there at the end, it’s hard knowing where everybody is. My spotter was keeping me up to date that we were two (points) to the good. But you never know if (Ryan Newman) or (Austin Dillon) was getting ready to pass a couple cars.”

Jeffrey Earnhardt slammed into the sand barrels at the entrance to pit road late in Stage 1 which forced NASCAR to red-flag the race for about 15 minutes.

Stenhouse was among the five drivers who had not yet completed their green-flag pit stops, which left him in an excellent position to capitalize on track position. He his fourth-place finish in the Stage gave him an extra seven points in the race – and he needed almost every one to advance.

Looking ahead

By advancing, however, Stenhouse and his team gets to reset again for the Round of 12. He will enter next weekend’s race at Charlotte as the eighth seed of 12 drivers who continue the quest for the championship.

“Well, we have to run better. We have to bring faster race cars to the track because what we are bringing to the track right now is not nearly fast enough,” Stenhouse said. “All in all, it is positive momentum that we did make it to the second round.”

One positive for Stenhouse, both of his Cup wins this season came on restrictor-plate tracks and Talladega Superspeedway is the second race of the three-race round.

“Definitely, Talladega is our best chance to grab a win. We knew coming into Dover that we probably didn’t have a car capable of winning,” he said. “But at Talladega, we feel confident going in that we have that car.

“We restart this round ahead of a few others and that’s a positive.”

 Watch Stenhouse Jr. talk about his finish and ability to advance: