Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has been slumping lately. Following a runner-up finish last month in Talladega, he’s finished 15th or worse in each of the next five races. That has seen him free fall in the points which has now taken him to 25th in the ever so important owners standings.

See, he knew being in the top 12 of that metric was going to be tough, but so long as he remained in the top 24, he knew that he would start between 13th to 24th each week. It just depended at that point on the luck of the draw.

The draw has been more favorable than not for the JTG Daugherty Racing driver. Three of his previous four starts were inside of the top 15. But, the finishes have tapered off and he’s now one point behind Cole Custer for 24th in owners points and just four more back to Christopher Bell in 23rd.

Lucky for him, he drew the 25th starting spot for tonight’s NASCAR Cup Series race at the Kansas Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN). That’s the best he could do.

“Obviously starting 25th, and losing a spot there, in points, was obviously the best we could start, so I’m thankful for that draw,” Stenhouse said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do as far as points go. Luckily, there are a lot that are close to us.”

Stenhouse feels like Kansas can be one of those race tracks where he feels like he can get some Stage points and get a good finish though. He’s finished 11th in the night race for three straight years there. He feels like his No. 47 Chevrolet now is better than the one he drove for Roush Fenway Racing the last few years too.

“I was watching the Kansas race from earlier last year when we ran that night race,” Stenhouse continued. “And, we were really good. We took the lead and I feel like our cars this year are probably better on the 1.5-miles than what I’ve had in the past, and so I feel like we can have good strong run at Kansas.”

While the finishes recently haven’t been there, Stenhouse does feel like they’ve learned a lot from the last couple of weeks on 1.5-mile track.

“We learned some things at Kentucky that I felt like translated over to Texas and we were much better at Texas than we were at Kentucky. I got caught in that wreck on the front straightaway, but I felt like our speed in our Kroger Camaro was really good. So, I’m looking forward to getting to Kansas and trying to crawl our way back up in the points.”

A top 10 would really boost the overall team morale too. Not only is Stenhouse slumping, so is his teammate Ryan Preece. In fact, Preece has finished last for three consecutive races now.

“Yeah, for sure,” Stenhouse said on if the team morale is frustrated right now. “I was thinking back earlier today, Pocono was kind of uneventful for us and we were average. I felt like we learned things for Indy and then we never really got a shot to try that and see how our car was going to be at Indy with the pit road accident. Going to Kentucky, we were really loose and had our issues. And then at Texas I felt like we had a car capable of running around 10th to 12th. I think we were up to 14th and slowing getting our track position and then got caught in that wreck on the front straightaway; not to mention, both of us got caught in that wreck.

“At the Bristol All-Star race, we definitely weren’t as good as what we wanted to be, but looking back at the Bristol race earlier this year we were really good around the top of the race track, and that never really came in until very late into that All-Star race. I wasn’t there for the Open, but yeah, it’s been a little bit frustrating, but everybody is still working hard. I feel like we know what we’re capable of. We’ve just got to have things work out just a little bit better for us.

“I feel bad for Ryan (Preece) because this has kind of been his whole season of having good runs going and things happen. For us, we were both in that same wreck on pit road at Indy and then we were both in the wreck on the front straightaway at Texas. So, it’s pretty frustrating, but our speed is where we want it to be, and I’m looking forward to building on that speed at Kansas.”

Stenhouse said that racing during the pandemic has affected them and their chemistry still. With having to distance, he still hasn’t seen all of his guys on a consistent basis yet because there’s not a need to send everybody to the race track. A lot of the guys are staying back at the shop.

“I’ll go to the shop and sit in my car, but only when the road crew guys are there that I see on the weekends,” said Stenhouse of the situation. “And so, that’s been kind of a struggle. At the beginning of the year, I was at the shop a lot and able to kind of be around everybody, but when you’re doing things with limited people, I think we saw some struggles at the beginning of getting back racing that cost us some points and some good finishes. But I felt like we’ve rebounded well and had some strong runs. There’s times that you struggle when you get to a race track like Kentucky, I felt like we struggled a little bit. We were a little too loose and never could really get a handle on the race car in the race. That’s something that like during practice, we could have gotten a hold of and made our cars better.

“But everybody else has that opportunity that if you practice, to do that same thing. So, I don’t really know if your position really changes a lot but everybody gets that opportunity. So, it’s been interesting to just show up to the race track and go racing.”

The saving grace for that though has been him being able to bring his crew chief from RFR over in Brian Pattie. That’s at least a huge benefit of having that comfort to bounce ideas off of.

“Yeah, it’s been great having Brian,” Stenhouse continued. “Obviously, he’s learning a new team and new cars as well. This time period that we’re in right now obviously would probably be a lot easier if we were still together at our former team just knowing the car over the last few years and kind of knowing all the ins and outs of it. Those are things that Brian, as a crew chief, had to learn kind of the hard way with a few things, and then myself also, having to learn some of those things. We know what balance trim that we like at these race tracks, but that was based off of our old race car. Now you’ve got a different one. Sometimes things don’t correlate and transition over as smoothly. But, I’m definitely glad to have him over in my corner. I think he’s one of the best out there and I know that the more time he has on the race cars, the better we’re going to be.”

Still, he and Chris Buescher basically flip flopped rides and both are having similar seasons.

“For me, I see a lot of opportunity to get more top 5’s and top 10’s, especially on these 1.5-mile race tracks,” Stenhouse said in comparing the two. “I feel like our cars are really good there. Looking back at getting back to Bristol, I feel like we still have a shot to win at Bristol, a better shot that probably I would have had before. I feel like that car that I had there, earlier in the year was one of my best. We still have room for improvement on landing the balance that we want at some of these race tracks, but I definitely see a lot of opportunity to run more consistent and further to the front than what we have so far this year. And, I’m excited for it. I believe in everybody at JTG Daugherty Racing. They’re working hard and they’re pumped-up and excited for the speed that we’ve had so far.

“People probably thought we’d kind of struggle for speed given all the circumstances and switching seats and teams and all that, but I feel like we probably on one hand, a few times this year have probably exceeded expectations and kind of surprised people. And then on the other hand, we’ve got to get more consistent with that. So, I’m looking forward to the second half of the year, for sure.”

Stenhouse notes that they’re definitely building toward next year now too. He says when the news came out that NASCAR would still be running these current cars, “you’re still learning a lot and trying to make sure that going into next year you have your best foot forward since we’re not switching cars.”

They’re still learning and trying to get everything aligned for next year, but there’s still opportunities for this year too.

“When you look back at this weekend in Texas, I felt like we were a 10th or 12th place car,” Stenhouse noted. “When my teammate and I got in that wreck, we landed; we flew back early, obviously, both out of the race; and we landed, and I heard the No. 3 team (Austin Dillon) won. And, I’m like dang. We out ran them all race. So, there’s opportunities. You’ve just got to keep fighting. You never know how these races are going to play out. You’ve just got to keep putting yourself in position. I feel like we have speed that we can run inside the top 10 at these 1.5-mile tracks. And if you’re inside the top 10, you never know what will happen (with) race strategies and different pit calls. We’ve still got Daytona there, looming in the future that it would be cool to win, and you’d put yourself in the Playoff there. So, we’re still working hard and looking for wins as well.”

A few weeks ago, his boss Brad Daugherty said that he felt like their cars are better this year now anyways.

“I think we’re a little ahead of last year,” said co-owner Daugherty. “We felt like the last 2 years, we build our own race cars and have some really smart people working really hard. We thought last year, we had race cars that were really good, really, really good. For us, being a midsize smaller team, when you go out and go toe to toe with these big guys, you go in the top 15 you’re having a good day. When you get in the top 10, you’re having a great day.”

Daugherty noted that their past struggles have always been on 1.5-mile tracks. These circuits are NASCAR’s bread-and-butter right now and ones that are difficult for smaller teams like theirs to compete up front on.

“What we’ve seen, the struggles have been when you go to the 1.5-mile’s and everybody has a lot of redundancy with simulation,” Daugherty continued. “It’s tough for us because we get out engineered a lot of times at the big race tracks.”

But, what is pleasantly surprising them is that this year, they’ve been up front on the mix on these tracks. Two of Stenhouse Jr’s three top five finishes have come on 1.5-mile tracks in fact. He was third in the second race of the year in Las Vegas and fourth in the second Charlotte race in May.

“This year, we’ve seen our race cars compete and be in the mix on the 1.5-mile’s,” said Daugherty. “We had great race cars at Bristol, felt like we could run in the top five and finish in the top five at Bristol. Even at Talladega. When you go to Talledega, those Hendrick engines and Hendrick horsepower is stout. The car was slick and fast. Had enough downforce for stability and Ricky could really maneuver the car.”

Now, the their only potential problem is, tempering Stenhouse Jr’s aggression. He admitted last month that he has to do a better job of that. In the past, he’d press too hard instead of letting the car come to him. Now that he may not necessarily have race winning cars but maybe a Top 5 to Top 10 car, he just needs to maximize those days.

“We’re excited,” Daugherty said of the future. “We think we can win a race or two with Ricky. We’re putting a lot of pressure with him to do so. We think he’s capable in our stuff.

“We think we have an opportunity. Hopefully we can get to the playoffs this year. We’re going to work really hard. We know with Ricky, we got the aggressiveness we need on restarts. There’s going to be some trials and tribulations with that but we can live with that.

Stenhouse agrees.

“I feel like we are definitely capable of running in the top 10,” Stenhouse said. “I hope we can continue to run top five and contend for wins.

“But I definitely feel like we can run top 10 with everything that we have right here. We have to do that – we have to limit my mistakes, limit the issues that we’ve had and just have good, smooth, solid nights, and I think we can run top-ten.”