Ricky Stenhouse Jr. addresses team rebrand to HYAK Motorsports for 2025 NASCAR season

JTG Daugherty Racing announced a rebranding to HYAK Motorsports this past month, launching a new era for the No. 47 team and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season was a tough year for JTG and Stenhouse, as the team struggled to find speed throughout the 36-race campaign. With renewed energy and Gordon Smith entering his second season as principal owner, Stenhouse is hopeful for better results in 2025, he said Tuesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. excited for new chapter with HYAK Motorsports

📈 "Processes will stay the same."

Ricky @StenhouseJr speaks on the team rebrand to @HYAKMotorsports and what the No. 47 bunch is focused on to improve performance in 2025.

More → https://t.co/MKhd9eLXG8 pic.twitter.com/RqAxhqjgBA

— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) December 3, 2024

“Obviously, we have a big shift in the organization,” Stenhouse said. “You can look at it a couple different ways and I think the way we’re looking at it is everything’s a little more consolidated, we got all the same great employees, the same crew guys and processes will stay the same. I feel confident Mike and the guys will keep working hard to try to make our cars faster when it comes to the on-racetrack portion of it. The off-track side of it, like you said Kroger — they were such a vital piece to me coming over to JTG at the time. Everything the whole Kroger organization has done for me is definitely something to be thankful of.

“Still glad they’re in the sport, they’ve been a part of our sport for a very long time and cool to see them not leaving like other big companies have lately. So, that’s really cool that they’re sticking around and wish them the best, but all our eyes at HYAK Motorsports are definitely looking forward and trying to get our performance back to kind of 2023 season. I felt like obviously starting with a win at the [Daytona] 500 was huge, but I think we averaged a 14th-place finish throughout most of the regular season and that’s something we wanna get back to, something that we failed to do this year. Just needed speed in our car and we’re using the offseason to deep dive into that and figure out where we went wrong and how to correct that.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. enters new era with HYAK Motorsports in 2025

Stenhouse, 37, made the playoffs in 2023 after winning the Daytona 500, but took a step back this past season. He finished 25th in the points standings, tallying just six tops 10s and three top 5s, while having seven DNFs.

Gone is Kroger, the grocery chain which sponsored Stenhouse for his first five seasons with JTG. Kroger is staying in the sport, however, sponsoring RFK Racing’s No. 60 car piloted by Ryan Preece in 2025.

That means it’s a new era for Stenhouse at HYAK, one he’s excited to begin in just two months’ time.

“Rebranding a team can be exciting,” Stenhouse said last month. “I’m looking forward to continuing building this team up with a lot of the same great crew members we have had here. I’m focused on the competition side and getting our performance back that we had in 2023. We learned a lot in 2024 and we’re ready to get back to the track.”