{"id":23593,"date":"2019-02-22T16:30:20","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T22:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=23593"},"modified":"2019-02-23T10:12:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-23T16:12:36","slug":"stenhouse-shrugs-off-criticism-with-other-drivers-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/22\/stenhouse-shrugs-off-criticism-with-other-drivers-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Stenhouse shrugs off criticism \u2014 with other drivers\u2019 support"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Servic<\/em><\/p>\n

HAMPTON, Ga. \u2013 In a Daytona 500 that racked up late-race cautions\u2014Ricky Stenhouse Jr.<\/strong> took a lambasting on social media for his part in a Lap 195 multicar wreck that collected Kevin Harvick\u2019s Ford and a half-dozen other cars.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Matt DiBenedetto, driver of the #95 Procore Toyota, races Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the #17 Fastenal Ford, during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series 61st Annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 17, 2019 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

As the front of the field approached Turn 3, Stenhouse saw a gaping hole between Harvick\u2019s Mustang in the bottom lane and Kyle Larson\u2019s Chevrolet on top. Stenhouse shot the gap.<\/p>\n

When Larson pulled down to block, the cars pinballed off each other and collected four cars behind them. Twitter lit up with invective against Stenhouse.<\/p>\n

Only one problem. In Harvick\u2019s view, the wreck wasn\u2019t Stenhouse\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t really feel like Stenhouse did anything wrong,\u201d Harvick said on Friday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. \u201cI feel like the 42 (Larson) pulled a block that was like three seconds too late and smacked him down into the side. I don’t feel like he really did anything wrong in shooting that gap that was wide open.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a really, really bad block by the 42. That\u2019s why you should always watch (a replay) before you complain and make a fool out of yourself, like I have done in the past. Initially, that\u2019s what I would have done. I would have been mad at him, but then you go watch the video, and that wasn\u2019t the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Stenhouse doesn\u2019t let the criticism bother him, but he does make a note of which drivers are doing the complaining.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet \u2018em think what they want,\u201d Stenhouse said. \u201cI definitely file that away. They definitely won\u2019t get any help from here on out. I think everybody was a little bit frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stenhouse was convinced he wasn\u2019t the proximate cause of the wreck.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew what happened from my seat,\u201d he told the NASCAR Wire Service. \u201cAny time I make a mistake on the race track, I always reach out to those people. I didn\u2019t feel like I made a mistake\u2026 Larson texted me as soon as the race was over and was like, \u2018Hey, sorry about that wreck on the back straightaway.\u2019<\/p>\n

You know, it just happens. There was a massive gap in the middle, and my car was handling really good. I felt like I needed to shoot the middle to get to the top five, \u2018cause you watch these races, and the top five doesn\u2019t change within the last four or five laps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were six to go, and I was like, \u2018Well, I\u2019ve got to get to the top five to have a shot at winning.\u2019 So that\u2019s the move I made. It just didn\u2019t work out.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, objectively, you can\u2019t blame Stenhouse for trying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Servic HAMPTON, Ga. \u2013 In a Daytona 500 that racked up late-race cautions\u2014Ricky Stenhouse Jr. took a lambasting on social media for his part in a Lap 195 multicar wreck that collected Kevin Harvick\u2019s Ford and a half-dozen other cars. As the front of the field approached Turn 3, Stenhouse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":23496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[52,384,16,459],"class_list":["post-23593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-atlanta-motor-speedway","tag-folds-of-honor-quiktrip-500","tag-nascar","tag-ricky-stenhouse-jr"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/MENCS_DIS1_DiBenedetto_Stenhouse_021719.jpg?fit=2844%2C1896","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-68x","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23593"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23595,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23593\/revisions\/23595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}