Friday 5: Amid celebration, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. reflects on path to Daytona 500 win

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. That’s how I feel like this is.”

After receiving his ring, watch, race winner’s jacket and placing his right foot and both hands in wet cement to be permanently displayed among Daytona 500 champions, Stenhouse was off to Disney World on Monday as part of the winner’s promotional tour. 

He returned home that night, got about three hours of sleep and flew the next morning to Chicago for a media tour and the chance to glimpse the street course NASCAR will race there July 1-2. Wednesday, he was at the race shop. Thursday he was in New York City for more appearances and ringing the opening bell at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square.

Stenhouse could have never imagined doing those things as he sought to follow his dad into racing. Among the memories that stand out to Stenhouse are the times