SOMEWHERE ABOVE THE CLOUDS — At an altitude higher than Mount Everest, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. sits comfortably in a leather seat in a CE-680A chartered plane, an enormous Daytona 500 ring on his right hand, a Rolex watch, given to the race winner, on his left wrist and his wife across the aisle.
It is a long way from the late nights on the road going from track to track with his father and later on his own as he sought to make a career driving sprint cars.
In the whirlwind 48 hours since his No. 17 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet crossed the finish line to win the Daytona 500, Stenhouse had been on the go.
Now, as the plane returns from Chicago to Concord, North Carolina, Stenhouse has time to reflect upon his journey to winning NASCAR’s biggest race. “When people climb Mount Everest, they get up there, they take it in,” Stenhouse tells NBC Sports. “You can’t be up there very long, but you take every moment you can. … That’s a big feat.