Stenhouse: "I feel good about where the No. 17 team is"

“I feel good about where the No. 17 team is and the direction we are going in our race car each week and if we can continue down the path that we are going down, it is going to continue to get better,” Stenhouse said at Dover (Del.) International Speedway, where he will start fifth in Sunday’s AAA 400.

“It is just not getting frustrated and making sure that I keep my eyes open for what we need in our cars each week so that when I come back to the shop I am not giving false information on what we need. That is the biggest thing.

“We don’t want to go down a path that is not going to get us better each week.”

Stenhouse, 28, enters Sunday’s race 19th in the series standings – the highest he’s been after 11 races since his 2013 rookie season. In a dramatic change from his rookie year (when he was 16th at this point), Stenhouse already has one top-five and two top-10 finishes this season.

"We are getting better"

His career-best Cup finish remains his second-place run at the spring race at Bristol, Tenn., in 2014, but since then, there has been little to celebrate in his Cup career until this season.

“We are getting better as a race team. We aren’t exactly where we want to be yet,” Stenhouse said. “We finished 13th last week and had a top-10 car but didn’t get the results out of it we needed to. That is just us cleaning up some of the mistakes we need to clean up.

“The last couple of years, I would have been really happy with a 13th place finish. It is nice to be disappointed with that now and continue to work and build on where we need to be.”

The entire Roush organization is improving

Stenhouse’s Roush teammate, Trevor Bayne, is 20th in points, but enjoying is most consistent season as a Cup driver to date. Fellow teammate, Greg Biffle, is 23rd and still searching for his first top-10 of the season.

“I think we are capable of running in the top-10 every week, we just have to make sure we do everything we are capable of doing,” Stenhouse said. “Everyone at Roush Fenway has worked really hard.

“Everyone at Ford Performance has given us a lot of help and it is nice to see all the hard work start to pay off. The guys in the shop have been working really hard for the last three years and finally everything is starting to come together like we anticipated it would.

“It is just took a little longer than we wanted it to be.”