Roush Fenway Racing returns to the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series with a two-car tandem and hope of returning to the playoffs.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Trevor Bayne are back for RFR after the team streamlined its operation last season. The move paid dividends as Stenhouse scored his first two career Cup wins and brought the organization back to the playoffs with an opportunity to run for the championship.
“Our organization grew and got stronger as the season went on,” said Stenhouse, who got his first win at Talladega in May and followed with a second win in July at Daytona. “We look forward to continuing that on the restrictor-plate tracks starting at Daytona and getting stronger everywhere else.”
Stenhouse took part in the two-day organizational test held at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and is optimistic his team will be even better next season with an eye on improvement.
“Everybody’s ready to go back to work,” Stenhouse said. “The biggest thing for us is to make sure we take a step this off-season of getting better on mile-and-a-half tracks and short tracks; and hopefully continue our success on superspeedways.”
While Bayne didn’t win last season, he did enjoy a better year that he had the previous campaign.
Bayne notched two top-five and six top-10 finishes in 2018, but understands there is plenty of room for improvement.
He enters his fourth season of full-time Cup competition and Bayne continues to reflect on lessons learned and remains optimistic for the season ahead.
“I want to be the guy that’s competitive,” said the 2011 Daytona 500 winner. “Obviously we haven’t done that as much as we wanted to in the last couple of seasons. We fired off fast in 2017, running top 12 just about every weekend to begin the season. We have to be able to get off to a strong start again, and to be able to carry that success throughout the entire season. Going into the season, we are optimistic about where we are headed this year.”
With a year of stage racing under his belt, Bayne understands the importance of garnering as many points as possible each week of the season.
“You’ve got to run good and earn more stage points and we’re going to work hard at that,” he said. “Obviously a win would be great early in the season, but those points- they really carry you through – so we’re going to be pushing for each point we can get.”
