Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge Race Preview

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. comes into the Texas Motor Speedway as the most recent winner at the track. Stenhouse captured the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 in April after leading 68 laps. Prior to that he had two top 10 finishes in 2011 and 2010 yielded mixed results with a 29th in the spring and 11th in the fall. Team: No. 6 NOS Energy Drink Ford Mustang Crew Chief:  Mike Kelley Chassis: RK-763 – primary – Last ran at Chicago – finished first.                RK–708 – backup – last ran at Iowa – finished fifth.    FAST FACTS: So far in 2012, Ricky has six wins, 17 top-five, and 23 top-10 finishes. Stenhouse is currently second in the NASCAR Nationwide point standings; 6 points behind Elliott Sadler. At Texas, Stenhouse will pilot the No. 6 NOS Energy Drink Ford Mustang. Stenhouse has completed 971 of 1005 (96.6%) laps at Texas Motor Speedway. Stenhouse has an average starting position of 4.6 and an average finishing position of 11.0 at Texas.        Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. on racing at Texas Motor Speedway: “Racing under the lights at Texas always brings excitement. You can race the entire track from top to bottom and the track gets really fast at night. This is NOS Energy Drink’s final paint out of the year so it would be great to get them into victory lane. We are down to the final three races so I have to do my job inside the car, and my No. 6 team has to execute on pit-road. It would be awesome to sweep both Nationwide races at Texas this year.” Crew chief Mike Kelley on racing at Texas Motor Speedway: “This is the same chassis that we won with at Chicagoland. We don’t get to practice at night here so we will have to make the according adjustments during the race based on our notes. Going into these final three races, we have to be mistake free on the track and pit-road. I feel confident that if we can execute on pit-road and make the needed changes to our NOS Energy Drink Ford that we can add the black cowboy hat to our collection.”