Busch went on to pass both Stenhouse and Larson, winning the race, while Stenhouse faded to fourth at the checkered flag with a car that the handling was going away on during the last green-flag run.
“We overcame a ton of adversity, man,” noted Stenhouse. “We lost track position multiple times and had to pass a lot of cars to get back to where we were. (Crew chief) Brian (Pattie) made a great call to come down pit road and taking tires before that long green flag run that we had. We got into second … and I was hoping it would just go green to the end, knowing that we had better tires than the 42 (Larson), who was the class of the field all day.
“Then we restarted there at the end. Brian said he didn’t get to really check the stagger on these tires and maybe make an adjustment with it. We didn’t take fuel … and that sometimes tightens you up a little bit, but this was still a great weekend for us. Hopefully, this will get us going and kick start us into next week and the rest of the season.”
Monday marked Stenhouse’s sixth top-10 finish in his last nine Bristol races in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. While he couldn’t put his finger on one specific thing that he likes about the .533-mile concrete oval, he reiterated how much he enjoys racing there.
“Bristol has always been one of my favorite race tracks,” said Stenhouse. “At short tracks, you get dominant cars and track position means a lot. “You have a handful of guys that can go to the back at a short track and run up through the field pretty quick, and I feel like we had those capabilities and showed them this weekend. It’s always nice coming here and running and I’m glad we posted a solid finish.”
Stenhouse leaves Thunder Valley 18th in the regular season standings, having closed his deficit to a playoff berth down to just eight points through the first eight races of the year.
However, what Stenhouse was most excited about at the end of the day was getting a chance to race with his old dirt-track compatriot Larson again, after the two shared portions of their earlier careers racing against one another on dirt tracks in the Central United States.
“It was a good time racing (Larson), but it would have been fun if I would have had something a little bit better to go racing with,” said Stenhouse. “I didn’t feel really good once we restarted there at the end. I didn’t really have a lot of grip compared to the restarts before, where I felt really good all race on restarts, so that was a bummer … but it was a ton of fun.
“I knew I had to get to him and he was really loose. I was able to get underneath him – I just couldn’t quite clear him. It would have been nice if I could have cleared him, but we still didn’t have the best car there on the short run. We were definitely a better long run car and just came up a bit short today.”
