Event Overview
● Event: Shriners Children’s 500
● Time/Date: 3:30 p.m. EST on Sunday, March 9
● Location: Phoenix Raceway
● Layout: 1-mile oval
● Format: 312 Laps/312 Miles (STAGES: 80 Laps/105 Laps/127 Laps)
● TV/Radio: FS1 /MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Notes of Interest
● Ricky Stenhouse Jr heads out West for Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway with hopes of keeping the momentum rolling after a three-race top-20 streak to kick off the season. He’ll debut a new paint scheme this weekend with Ram Self Storage adorning the hood of his sleek No. 47 Chevrolet Camaro. After scoring finishes of 17th and fifth in the first two races of the 2025 season at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway, Stenhouse visited one of the team’s “Achilles’ Heel” last weekend at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas. Despite struggling with the handling of his Chevrolet throughout the majority of the race, Stenhouse was able to grind out his second-best finish at COTA by crossing the line in 18th. He now heads to another track that the team has struggled on in the past with high hopes of finding improvement and speed.
● Sunday’s race at Phoenix will mark Stenhouse’s 25th NASCAR Cup Series start at the 1-mile oval in the desert. In his previous 24 starts starting in 2013, Stenhouse has scored a total of one top-five and two top-10s. His best finish of fourth came in March 2017, which he followed up with his second-best finish of eighth in November 2017, both while driving the No. 17 car. Since becoming the driver of the No. 47 Chevrolet in 2020, his best finish at the track is 12th, which he earned in March 2021.
● Stenhouse has seven starts outside of the NASCAR Cup Series all of which came in the Xfinity Series between 2010 and 2016. In stark contrast to his Cup Series statistics, Stenhouse never finished worse than ninth in all seven of his starts, earning a best finish of third in three races – March and November 2012 on his way to his second of back-to-back Xfinity Series championship and November 2016. In total, he scored four top-fives and seven top-10s in the series, in addition to his 76 laps led at the 1-mile oval.
● Sport worlds will collide on Saturday in Phoenix as Stenhouse attends the Arizona State University Sun Devils’ baseball game against the Gonzaga Bulldogs at the Phoenix Municipal Stadium. Stenhouse will not only be warming up with the players but also kicking off the game with the famous “Play Ball” and participating in several activities throughout the night. The game starts at 6:30 p.m. MST/8:30 p.m. EST.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Driver of the No. 47 Ram Self Storage Chevrolet for Hyak Motorsports:
Phoenix is a track that holds a lot of pressure later in the year due to the Championship race. Still, a lot can be gained from this weekend including a win to clinch a spot in the playoffs and a chance to work on your short-track package prior to a real short-track race. What are your goals for this weekend at the 1-mile oval of Phoenix?
“Phoenix has been a track where it’s been weird. In the Xfinity Series, I don’t think I finished worse than ninth. But then in Cup, we’ve had a few top-10 runs, maybe even a top-five run, but for the most part, we’ve just struggled a lot. Since going to the new car, we’ve really struggled a decent amount. We spent a lot of time this off season really looking at Phoenix in particular to try and get our short track program better. We wanted to see if we could take some stuff that we learned back in 2023 that we didn’t use in 2024. So, I’m excited to get to the track to see how all of those adjustments end up working. I’m looking forward to getting on track and seeing how it is.”
Instead of Phoenix wrapping up the West Coast Swing, it’s not in the middle with next Sunday’s race at Las Vegas being the closing race. What are your thoughts on not only this change to the schedule, but also Phoenix itself?
“It really doesn’t matter to me before or after Las Vegas, to be honest. I would say for us it would be nice to get the first short track race of the year done and out of the way. That way we can see if we’ve improved and gotten better from last year. It’ll set us up to see what we can work on from here and what works for us. Then obviously, we go to Las Vegas after which will be our first real mile-and-a-half track. We’ll be able to see where we stack up in both of those. These are both tracks that we’ve worked a decent amount on to try to get our balance better and find speed. It’s a test for us right off the bat. I think we learned this past weekend that we still have a lot of work to do on our road course package, but I think we were still able to get a solid finish out of it. So, if we are off at Phoenix or Vegas, we’ll just make sure we grind a good finish out of it.
Hyak Motorsports PR