The HighPoint.com 400 was one of the most entertaining races of this season. The viewers witnessed more than a few intense battles throughout the race. One of the drivers who performed exceedingly well last weekend was Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The 2023 Daytona 500 winner had a great day of racing despite facing some hiccups during the race.
Stenhouse Jr didn’t have the best qualifying race. This meant that he had to make up a lot of places during the race. Even though his car showed good pace during the race, he struggled to make it past a Team Penske driver going incredibly slowly.
Like a moving speed breaker: Team Penske driver gets in the way of Ricky Stenhouse Jr
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Austin Cindric and Ricky Stenhouse Jr were having two completely different races at Pocono Raceway. Cindric, who had great pace in Qualifying and qualified ninth, was struggling to defend against the cars behind him during the race. Whereas, Stenhouse Jr who struggled in qualifying and qualified 22nd was making his way up to the front.
As the race progressed, it was getting clear that Cindric just doesn’t have the pace to keep defending. However, he was trying to get his car as wide as possible to retain his place. Nevertheless, the sheer lack of pace left him with no option but to let the other drivers pass.
Stenhouse Jr slowly caught up to Cindric who was falling behind. When they met on the race track Cindric tried to defend against Stenhouse Jr and failed. At that point in time, Stenhouse Jr’s spotter Tad Boyd made a pretty brutal comment saying, “Tell you what. I’d just wreck his a**. He’s killing everybody. I mean everybody.”
Cindric has been having a pretty miserable season. In 21 starts, he hasn’t managed to finish in the top 5 even once. He is currently 22nd in the leaderboard and is desperately looking for a win to get a spot in the playoffs.
On the other hand, Stenhouse Jr more or less booked his playoff berth in the very first race of the season. He won the longest Daytona 500 in history and became the first driver to put his name in the hat for a playoff spot.
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Stenhouse Jr had reasons to be nervy at the Pocono Raceway
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Ricky Stenhouse Jr is currently occupying the last place on the winner’s list and was under some risk before Pocono. Out of the 11 race winners, Stenhouse Jr has the least number of points.
A new race winner at every race including Pocono would’ve meant that the Daytona 500 would need to go through a tiebreaker. However, now that we can only have 5 new winners in the remaining races, Stenhouse Jr has officially qualified for the playoffs.
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This means that the first 11 drivers for the playoffs have been confirmed and we have just 5 spots remaining. As the playoff stages come closer the fight for the remaining spots is going to keep getting tighter. With some former Cup Series champions like Kevin Harvick and Chase Elliott still left to qualify, it will be interesting to see who makes it and who doesn’t.
