CHICAGO – Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has been racing around the country the past few days.
He won the longest Daytona 500 in NASCAR history Sunday before heading down the road to Disney World on Monday with a pit stop at one of his favorite restaurants in between to celebrate ending his 199 winless streak.
“We were all hungry. We took the trophy to Waffle House. That is a place where we always find ourselves after late night races. That was a lot of fun. Came back and got to party and hang out with the guys.
“I don’t think I would trade the wait for anything,” remarked Stenhouse. “There’s a lot of people that would 199 races to win the Daytona 500.”
Stenhouse flew to the windy city Tuesday to help announce NASCAR’s partnership with Chicago Public Schools and the Field Museum. The three are combining forces for a race helmet design challenge with 22,000 K-12 students from all 43 STEM and STEAM schools in the city competing for tickets to the Chicago Street Race Weekend in July.
“We haven’t done anything like this in 75 years of NASCAR and I have never done a street course race. I’m looking forward to that. I think it’s going to be challenging as a driver, trying to see around the walls. There are a few 90 degree corners that we’ve ran a couple simulator races around the course. It’s just the vision that NASCAR has that keeps us excited about going to cool places,” Stenhouse explained. “Definitely going to get a lot of cool videos of our race cars laying rubber on the streets.”
