Ricky Stenhouse Jr

Richard Lynn Stenhouse Jr., born on October 2, 1987, grew up in Mississippi and first sat in a kart at the age of six. Until his transition to Sprint Car racing in 2003, he accumulated 47 wins and over 90 podium finishes in junior categories, a record that demonstrated his talent early on. The switch to Dirt Ovals with 360-Cubic-Inch-Winged Sprint Cars marked the beginning of his professional motorsport career and earned him the 2003 Rookie of the Year award from the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame.

In the following years, Stenhouse built his reputation in the USAC series before making the jump to the ARCA Racing Series in 2008 with Roush Fenway Racing, laying the foundation for his stock car career. In just his sixth stock car race, he celebrated his first win on May 10, 2008, at Kentucky Speedway and finished the season fourth in the Rookie standings. Starting in 2009, he competed in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, was named Rookie of the Year there in 2010, and crowned his ascent with back-to-back championships in 2011 and 2012 for Roush Fenway Racing before moving to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2013, where he was also immediately named Rookie of the Year.

Among the greatest achievements of his Cup career are his first win in 2017 at the GEICO 500 at Talladega, followed later that year by the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona. Stenhouse celebrated his biggest triumph in 2023 when he won the Daytona 500, the most prestigious race of the NASCAR season. In 2024, he followed up with a victory at the YellaWood 500 at Talladega, underscoring his strength on the country’s fast superspeedways.

For the 2026 season, Stenhouse joins Hyak Motorsports as a full-time driver, piloting the No. 47 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in the NASCAR Cup Series. After stints with Roush Fenway Racing and most recently JTG Daugherty Racing and Hyak Motorsports, he aims to use his superspeedway experience to compete for wins again and build on the success of recent years.