But entering Sunday’s Alabama 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, Stenhouse has a chance match a NASCAR record set by an Earnhardt family member, which is no easy task when talking about restrictor-plate racing.

A victory in Sunday’s race would give Stenhouse three consecutive wins in restrictor-plate races – something that hasn’t been accomplished since Dale Earnhardt Sr. in 1990.

Kurt Busch (Daytona 500) and Stenhouse have combined to win all three restrictor-plate races in 2017. A victory on Sunday would also mark the first time in NASCAR history that Ford has won all four events in the same season.

“Throughout my whole Xfinity career I was like, ‘Man, I don’t know about the superspeedways.’ They weren’t my favorite,” Stenhouse said Friday at Talladega. “We ran good, but I never really felt like I knew how to put myself in position for our team to win, so the mile-and-a-half and short tracks I always felt like were our two good tracks.

“On the Cup side, especially here at Talladega, it’s always been a track where we’ve been pretty consistent and, like I said, missing wrecks and getting good finishes, but I guess I didn’t see my first win coming at a (super)speedway.”

Stenhouse, who is ranked last among the 12 drivers remaining in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, needs a win, or at least a good finish Sunday, to remain in championship contention.

The four playoffs drivers lowest in points without a win will be eliminated from title contention following next weekend’s race at Kansas.

“Maybe tying Earnhardt is really cool, even just to have the opportunity. I didn’t know that stat. I try not to look at things too much and really focus on each week that’s coming up,” he said. “It would be awesome to get a third win this season and three in a row on superspeedways.

“I’m enjoying them more now than I used to. I used to not really enjoy them because I felt like your outcome could be in a lot of other people’s hands.”

Having fast cars capable of winning has increased Stenhouse’s confidence each time he returns to a superspeedway.

“I feel like I’ve learned a lot and I’m able to do more with our car than I maybe wasn’t able to do early in my career,” he said. “When we won here the last time I was like, ‘OK, my spotter and I worked really well together and we know what it takes to win.’

“When we had the red flag at Daytona late in the race (in July), we felt confident of what we needed to do to win that race.”

Watch this interview with Stenhouse Jr.: