Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s path to NASCAR wasn’t made from family legacy or prewritten expectations; it was pure happenstance and a meeting of opportunity. Unlike Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chase Elliott, or Kyle Busch, who were destined to follow family tire tracks to NASCAR, Stenhouse didn’t even have NASCAR on his radar. His childhood revolved around dirt, tagging along to watch his father race by the time he was six months old.
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Before Stenhouse ever buckled into a Cup car, he had already made waves in USAC National Sprint Car racing, where his raw pace and fearlessness turned heads. His breakout run landed him in Tony Stewart’s midget and sprint car stable, setting in motion the chain of events that would change his career overnight.
In a recent sit-down with Chase Holden, Stenhouse revisited those years, saying, “I didn’t get to race sprint cars very long. My career I feel like happened, you could kind of say overnight, at least like that’s what it felt like. And looking back, it definitely, for me, I raced go-karts.”
Stenhouse recalled how he once dreamed of jumping into micros or midgets, but his father wasn’t willing to spend the money on those stepping stones. Instead, his dad decided to wait until his son could handle a full-sized sprint car, a gamble that paid off. By the time Ricky was 15 and a half, he was ready.
His first half-season came in 2003, followed by full campaigns in 2004, 2005, and 2006, years that shaped his sprint car pedigree. But 2007 was when everything clicked. At Manzanita Speedway, Stenhouse stole the show, notching two wins in three starts during the Copper on Dirt showcase.
“Started dabbling a little bit in the non-wing USA stuff,” he said. “Then 2007 is when I ended up running for Tony sprint car team. Raced USA all that year, and then all of a sudden at the end of that year I’m signing a contract with Ralph Fenway Racing to race in the ARCA series. So you know it happened really fast. I would say I ran full-time sprint cars for… like four years. It wasn’t very long.”
By then, Stenhouse had barely graduated high school, yet he was already getting paid to do what he loved. Yet, he admitted, “And then I didn’t really think that there was an opportunity to go to NASCAR, but every door just kind of kept opening to eventually have that opportunity.”
In the blink of an eye, Stenhouse went from dirt tracks to the national spotlight, sweeping the USAC National Sprint Car and Silver Crown main events before stepping in for Tracey Hines at Tony Stewart Racing after an injury sidelined him.
Just two races into his TSR stint, Stenhouse drove the No. 21 car to win at Tri-State Speedway in Indiana, proving his talent translated seamlessly across divisions.
