The Pinellas County native behind Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s Daytona 500 win

DAYTONA BEACH — If Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s double-overtime Daytona 500 victory Sunday was vindication for someone trying to earn his status as a bigger driver in the sport, it was also validation for the 51-year-old Pinellas County native who helped push Stenhouse to Victory Lane.

“This is a dream come true,” triumphant crew chief Mike Kelley said Sunday night.

One Kelley doubted he would ever get to experience.

Kelley raced at Pinellas Park’s Sunshine Speedway in the 1990s before moving to the other side of the wall with some of the biggest names in the sport: Dale Earnhardt. Sr., Ernie Irvan and Hall of Famers Ray Evernham and Jack Roush.

He worked on Michael Waltrip’s Daytona 500-winning car in 2001, was the car chief for Kurt Busch’s NASCAR Cup Series championship run in 2004 and was Stenhouse’s crew chief for back-to-back title runs in what is now called the Xfinity Series. By 2014, Kelley had climbed to become Stenhouse’s Cup crew chief.

It didn’t last. They combined for one top-five finish that year and finished 27th in points.

“I just wasn’t ready,” Kelley said.

The results from his second stint as a Cup crew chief went even worse; he had only one top-10 finish with Front Row Motorsports in 2019. Through his first 72 Cup races with that title, Kelley’s stats: one top-five finish, six top-10 finishes and one lap led. Kelley figured his days in that role were probably over.

“Every year I would get a couple opportunities,” Kelley said, “and I always told myself that I wouldn’t do it unless I was 100 percent bought in.”

The chance to be the chief atop Stenhouse’s box again was enough to convince Kelley to commit fully to a grinding job as the leader of a team that competes in the longest season in U.S. professional sports. He had worked with Stenhouse for a dozen years at various levels and never stopped believing in his driver’s abilities. He had been serving as the competition director at JTG Daugherty, so he knew the team and its employees were ready.

Last year, Kelley agreed to take over for another crew chief with Tampa Bay ties — Zephyrhills’ Brian Pattie, who moved into the Truck Series. Kelley vowed to do things differently.

“I feel like I’ve worked really hard this offseason, not just on cars and vehicles but on people,” Kelley said. “I think that means as much as anything. If you get a group of guys who believe in each other and gals who believe in each other, small teams can do a lot.”

That was evident by what happened at Daytona International Speedway.

Their No. 47 Chevrolet was unimpressive when it arrived and was 35th in qualifying Wednesday night. Kelley said his team left the track that night “with our tails between our legs” and worked at the hotel until 12:30 a.m. Six hours later, they were back at it in the hotel lobby.

The car was better by the end of Thursday’s duels before another late-night work session. By Friday, the Camaro wasn’t as fast as Stenhouse’s car that won the pole in 2020, and it probably wasn’t as strong as the one that led 16 laps at “The Great American Race” last year. But Stenhouse told Kelley it was good enough to win.

From there, it took the usual mix of skilled driving, sound strategies and fortuitous cautions to put Stenhouse in position to earn his third career Cup victory. It would not have happened without Kelley.

“Mike has moved the needle on where this race team is at,” Stenhouse said.

And after Sunday, there’s no question where that needle is pointing, for Stenhouse, his team and the Pinellas County native on the box.

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