Ricky Stenhouse Jr.: ‘I’ve calmed down a little’ after threatening to kick Carson Hocevar’s ass

“I’ve calmed down a little bit. My wife talks me off the ledge sometimes,” Stenhouse said Friday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “She does a good job of that. But it doesn’t change the fact that you get spun out for no reason. Felt like it cost us at least seven spots. We didn’t wreck like at Nashville, but we put ourselves in a spot. We got spun a couple times in that race. And just kept trying to fight back and get our track position. Felt like on that long run there at the end — there was still three or four spots right there in front of us that we could get and we ended up giving up another four or five spots.

“Just frustrating, obviously, when you got someone a lap down that had ran into you a couple weeks before that. Our talk after Nashville — he said, ‘Hey, I’m going to run you a lot different,’ which hey, at Mexico City, he waved me by. I was like, ‘Alright, things are looking up.’ And then, he missed his marks and came from pretty far back and ran into us. Again, I know he wasn’t racing us. But it’s really frustrating for my team and our partners and myself to get spun at a stage like that where there was nothing to be raced for.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. heading into Pocono with new spotter

There are only 10 regular season races remaining on the schedule. Stenhouse is on the outside looking in of the playoff picture. Just a few weeks ago, Stenhouse sat above the cutline. That’s gone after the incidents with Hocevar. Stenhouse has finished 20th or worse in his last three starts and is now 21st in the points standings.

Stenhouse is frustrated and it’s easy to see why. He seemingly squashed the issue with Hocevar after Nashville, and it happened again in Mexico City. His chances of pointing his way into the playoffs are unlikely. He needs to win.

On top of that, Stenhouse has a new spotter. Stenhouse confirmed that Tab Boyd, his spotter since the start of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, was fired by HYAK Motorsports. Clayton Hughes, who won a Cup Championship in 2017 while spotting for Martin Truex Jr., will serve as spotter for Stenhouse and the No. 47 team starting at Pocono.