There aren’t many men who are 24 years of age or less who can claim to be a champion in one of NASCAR’s top three divisions, but Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is one of them.

 

Stenhouse claimed his first NASCAR championship last year when he won the Nationwide title by 45 points over second-place finisher Elliott Sadler, capping a season that saw him win in the series for the first time and lead the point standings for 17 weeks, including the last 14.

 

Consistency proved to be the key for Stenhouse, who was never lower than fifth in points at any time in the season.  He ended up with 26 top-10 finishes and 16 top-5 performances in 34 starts, which included a sweep of the two races at Iowa Speedway.  Stenhouse got his first victory in May as he led five times for 41 laps and beat teammate Carl Edwards to the finish line.  Those two provided an even more dramatic finish the second time around as Edwards slammed into the back of Stenhouse and catapulted him across the finish line after Stenhouse blew an engine coming off turn four of the final lap.

 

A native of Olive Branch, MS, Stenhouse also made his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut last season when he substituted for an ailing Trevor Bayne in the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Fusion of the Wood Brothers.  He qualified ninth for the Coca-Cola 600 in May and finished 11th.

 

The fact Stenhouse was in a Cup car surprised many observers because a year earlier his ride at Roush Fenway was in jeopardy as a series of accidents and bad finishes had him on the ropes.  Things turned around, coincidentally, as soon as Mustang made its on-track debut at Daytona in July 2010.  Stenhouse finished third that night, which was a career-best at the time, and his confidence steadily grew to a point where he made the biggest comeback in series history to win rookie of the year honors.

 

Stenhouse made his Nationwide debut in 2009 by competing in seven races.  He debuted at Nashville in June and finished 32nd, but scored his best finish of the season just a couple weeks later at Milwaukee, where he ended up fifth.

 

Prior to that, Stenhouse used the ARCA season as a proving ground in 2008 as he made the adjustment from driving sprint cars to stock cars.  He competed in 21 races that season and posted wins at Kentucky (in only his sixth start in a stock car) and Pocono while registering three consecutive poles and finishing fourth in the final point standings.

 

Much of Stenhouse’s experience before 2008 was confined to Sprint cars, where he drove for Tony Stewart among others during his formative years.  He garnered much attention and many honors, which included rookie of the year honors in the USAC Midget and Sprint car divisions in 2007.

 

Like many of his peers, Stenhouse got behind the wheel at an early age.  He suited up and started driving go-karts when he was six years old and won nearly 50 races over the next decade before transitioning to 360 winged sprint cars in 2003, where he earned rookie of the year recognition.