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Ricky vs. Trevor may be a thing of the past.
The Roush Fenway Racing duo of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Trevor Bayne have a competitive history, having created the Ricky vs. Trevor campaign in 2011, their first year together at Roush in the now-XFINITY Series. The drivers partook in a slew of fun, off-track competitions (including which driver could do a better Carl Edwards-esque backflip), as well as race battles.
But it's different now; with Greg Biffle's departure from his longtime seat in the No. 16 Ford, RFR has downsized its Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series fleet from three to two full-time rides, with Bayne and Stenhouse.
"I think Ricky and I have kind of realized in the last couple of years of being teammates at the Cup level that it's not Ricky versus Trevor anymore, it's Roush Fenway Racing versus everybody else," Bayne, 25, said Jan. 24 at the NASCAR Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway. "We've come alongside each other as teammates and are really gonna push each other this season. I mean, I feel like we started doing that last season and we saw some result from it, but we're gonna learn from each other, we're gonna be humble through it and we're gonna understand that you can learn from each other and we're gonna push our team."
Last season was one of early hope, but eventual disappointment for the Roush Fenway group. Stenhouse surprised many in the season's second race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where he qualified fifth and finished 10th. He went on to post nine top-16 finishes the next 12 races. Bayne showcased some speed particularly in qualifying, where he started third at Atlanta and followed with six top-15 qualifying spots from Auto Club Speedway in March to May’s Coca-Cola 600.
It was that middle stretch that the team began to slightly unravel, Bayne said.
"I think we can learn a lot from last season," Bayne said. "In sports, we're quick to look at our last performances as our evaluation of a whole season and last year I think we kind of shocked ourselves and everyone else when we came to Atlanta and got our car to qualify third, ran well. There were a lot of times early in the season when we were making it to the final round of qualifying … that performance early in the year was something that shocked us a little bit.
"As the season went on, I feel like we did not keep up the way that we wanted to, so what we have to learn is … 'How do you stay motivated and make the gains from Michigan to Homestead that you make in the off-season, that you show up to Atlanta and Daytona with?' That’s what we have to do as a team. ... It's those summer months that we get to when you really find out what you're made out of and what you can accomplish throughout the rest of the season."
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One path to consistency could be through restructure, as Roush Fenway implemented several personnel changes during the offseason: Team manager Kevin Kidd will transition to competition director, while former production director Tommy Wheeler will serve as operations director in overseeing production. Stenhouse will have a new face atop his No. 17 pit box, as former No. 16 crew chief Brian Pattie will call the shots and former crew chief Nick Sandler becomes the director of engineering.
Recognizing the struggles Roush Fenway has experienced over the past few seasons, Stenhouse believes these changes will benefit the organization this year. Having been at the race shop plenty during the sport's brief offseason, the 29-year-old driver sees it during the daily 7:30 a.m. meetings that scrutinize to-do lists and with the large effort put forth by his No. 17 team. That drives him.
"I'm excited that I've seen progress being made in communication at our shop and everybody seems really motivated to get Jack (Roush) and our partners back to running better, running up front," Stenhouse said. "We don't show up to the race track not to do that. They've put a lot of hard work into it and we're trying to make up a lot of ground that we've lost over the last couple years."
"…I think I've been encouraged with what I've seen at the race shop this offseason."
But will the new race enhancements, which implement race stages and emphasize consistency, prove to be yet another hurdle for inconsistent Roush?
Stenhouse takes comfort in a philosophy from his favorite collegiate football coach.
"I've been in a few of (Ole Miss) Coach (Hugh) Freeze's pre-game locker room speeches (and) I feel like he always says, 'The orders remain the same,' " Stenhouse said. "For us, I feel like the orders are the same for me and my race team and Roush Fenway. We've got to continue to strive to build faster race cars. We've got to strive to make fewer mistakes on the race track and have faster pit stops."