Stephen Montoya
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. hit the field with Kaz Kazadi at Amon G. Carter Stadium on Tuesday to get ready for his May 4 stop at Texas Motor Speedway.
On a sunny Tuesday morning in Fort Worth, NASCAR driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. walked into Amon G. Carter Stadium expecting a light workout. “They told me we were coming here to work out with TCU,” he said, laughing. “I still don’t really know what that means. So... we’ll find out together.”
He found out fast.
Kaz Kazadi — TCU’s assistant athletics director for football human performance — doesn’t ease people in. He put Stenhouse through a half-hour gauntlet of deep squats, stairs, explosive movements, and posture resets aimed at shaking off the wear and tear of 200 mph Sundays. “You grab tools from the toolbox,” Kazadi said. “The tool does what the tool does.”
But Stenhouse isn’t just any tool. The 2023 Daytona 500 winner, with two Cup Series victories and a career that spans more than a decade, has built his fitness off-track through endurance tests like mile-long burpee broad jumps and 30-mile runs. He came to TCU hoping to pick up something new. He left with a fire in his glutes and a plan to overhaul his Mondays.
Kazadi had done his homework. The workout was football-based, but designed around the demands of sitting in a fixed position for four hours — tight low back, dormant glutes, compressed shoulders. “He knew exactly what I struggle with after a race,” Stenhouse said. The goal was activation, not exhaustion. Strength with mobility. Muscle memory tuned for speed.
1 of 4
Stephen Montoya
2 of 4
Stephen Montoya
3 of 4
Stephen Montoya
4 of 4
Stephen Montoya
Stenhouse walked away with a few new techniques he plans to use on race days — mobility drills to loosen up before strapping into the cockpit. He also walked away with a new diet plan. “[Kazadi] saw my midsection,” he joked. “We’re gonna get that dialed in.”
At 36, Stenhouse is thinking long-term. The Cup Series schedule doesn’t allow much breathing room — he’s in the middle of a 28-week stretch — but he still races dirt tracks midweek and wants to finish the year feeling strong, not wrecked. “I just had a kid,” he said. “I want to be out in the yard throwing a football when he’s a teenager.”
Behind the wheel, his job is to keep his heart rate low and reaction time high, in a sport that doesn’t allow for a halftime break. “You’re doing interviews, shaking hands — and five minutes later, you’re locked in at 200 mph,” he says.
Stenhouse sees the parallels between racing and football. His crew chief, Mike Kelley, calls the game plan. The spotter serves as the defensive coordinator. The pit crew, his offensive line. Mid-race strategy changes come from what he calls the “war room” — engineers and analysts watching from the shop, much like coordinators in the booth.
“Last week at Talladega, I was saving fuel until the data changed, and we had to flip the plan. We didn’t have time to talk it through,” Stenhouse says. “They just told me to go.”
Texas Motor Speedway is next on May 4th. Stenhouse only races there once a year now, which makes prep harder. Turns 1 and 2 are completely different from 3 and 4 — he compares it to a football field where one end is downhill and the other is off-camber. Add wind and aging pavement to the mix, and the track becomes even trickier.
But he’s ready. Last year, he was running top 10 before pit cycles shuffled the field. He thinks they’ve got the car. And now, maybe the workout.
“If we win Texas,” he said, “I might start flying to Fort Worth every Monday.”
