It’s fair to say that Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s life has changed this season. And why wouldn’t it. After all he won his third career NASCAR Cup series race this season; one that just so happens to be one of the sport’s crown jewels, the Daytona 500.

Winning the first race of the season meant that the driver and his JTG Daugherty Racing team were locked into NASCAR’s Playoffs right out of the gate. That, in turn, has led to a much different attitude at the racetrack as the season progressed.

“That's been nice to kind of, for us as a race team, just be able to be a little bit more loose,” Stenhouse said. “A little bit more relaxed and really focus on what we need to focus on to get better as a race team, knowing that if something doesn't go right that weekend it's not, you know, completely over. So that's been nice.”

It also meant the driver has a lot more to do.

“I've been really, really busy in a good way,” he said. “Being able to go out and promote our team, our sponsors and NASCAR throughout the year.

“it's been a huge blessing to us, and I've really embraced it and enjoyed it.”

The win on NASCAR’s biggest stage was also a huge deal for the team’s sponsors as well. Kroger KR has been a longtime sponsor for JTG Daugherty Racing and shared the space for the Daytona 500 with Cottonelle, one of the many products the grocery store chain sells.

“To see how excited a lot of people that helped put this program together many years ago, how pumped up and excited they were,” Stenhouse said.

“All of our partners that are in this program really embraced that win and tried to take advantage of it.”

The Daytona 500 is NASCAR’s Super Bowl and is one of the most watched races of the season giving the sponsor more value than they could have ever imagined.

“There's a lot of teams and drivers and sponsors that don't get that opportunity to experience the winning of the Daytona 500 as a team,” he said.” It’s been it's been really cool to take that back to Cincinnati, to Kroger's headquarters and celebrate with everyone.”

The win was not only valuable to the current sponsors, but in attracting new ones, along with ones for the winning driver.

“Yeah, things have definitely been a lot more beneficial for our team and even me on the personal services side,” Stenhouse said. Adding with a laugh, “You know, doing deals, doing interviews and things at racetracks getting paid for it is nice.”

The team sold out its sponsorship inventory for this season and is already well on its way to filling up next season as well.

“On the race team side, they said the sales have definitely been a little more frequent and easier to come by, which is always nice,” Stenhouse said chuckling.

As demonstrated in the Daytona 500, Kroger has leveraged its sponsorship on the car by partnering with the various products sold in its stores. That’s included brands such as Sunny D juice, bakery Sarah Lee, Cheez-it crackers, and food manufacturer Kellogg’s K .

And while Stenhouse has promoted everything from toilet paper to breakfast cereal through the partnership, this weekend he will be promoting an unusual product as part of a promotion for Kellogg’s.

“I think they had mentioned it actually at the Daytona 500,” Stenhouse said. “Really, I don’t know if it was before or after we won the race, but they had mentioned that ‘hey, we got some cool things, coming down the line and, and we're going to use the race team to kind of help promote that’”.

The ‘thing’ is a new product that is a collaboration between Kellogg’s and Sugarlands Distilling company, a company that has partnerships with NASCAR and is the official spirits partner of the team. The new product combines Kellogg’s waffles with alcohol to make ‘Eggo Brunch in a Jar Sippin’ Cream.’ And it’s unlike anything Stenhouse has ever promoted before. The promotion includes a paint scheme on the car he will race at Watkins Glen and on his firesuit that resembles waffles. Both made their debut Tuesday and garnered a great deal of attention on social media.

Of course, being the professional he is, Stenhouse is all about promoting it.

“It's got a little bit of rum in it,” he said of the new product. “It's got a taste of, Eggo waffles, maple syrup, little bit of butter and some smoked kind of bacon flavor in there.”

“It tastes delicious,” he added. “And the race car looks really cool this weekend and we're looking forward to getting it on track at Watkins Glen.”

Wearing a firesuit adorned with waffles, and driving a racecar to match at Watkins Glen is something that Stenhouse has no problem with.

“I commit to whatever my team tells me to commit to,” he said laughing.

“Luckily, our team is just really good at making all of our partners feel like family to our race team; every single one of them matters to what we do and how we perform on the racetrack. If we're not sold out in sponsorship you have to start cutting corners on your resources to make your race team faster.

“Every single one, obviously Kroger is our banner sponsor, but you know, the things Kroger lets our company use to help promote products like Sugarland's new Brunch in a Jar or Cheez-Its or Frosted Flakes or NOS Energy Drink, you name it, they really help us sell products in their store.

“And they do that through the race program…it has a direct impact on our performance, we feel like, like I said, we all feel like family. We do so much together throughout the year. It’s a good fit.”

After Watkins Glen there will be one more regular season race, that at Daytona International Speedway the site of Stenhouse and JTG Daugherty’s Daytona 500 win to open the season. It’s also where Stenhouse scored his second career win, that in the summer race in 2017. Watkins Glen is special to the team as well as it was the site of the team’s first NASCAR Cup series win with driver AJ Allmendinger in 2014.

In 2017, in his last appearance in the Playoffs with another team, Stenhouse made it to the second round and finished the season 13^th in the final standings.

This time he’s with a new team and with the Next Gen car leveling the playing field for all has made all the teams more competitive each week Stenhouse hopes for a better outcome when the 10 race Playoffs begin at Darlington the week after Daytona.

“Our goal is to go deep in the playoffs,” he said. “We want to make a run and see how far we can get. You got three races every single round. You can't have any off days. From the time Daytona's over that next week and going into Darlington it's a serious business.

“There's no mulligans. You have got to be sharp every time you hit the racetrack. You got to qualify well; you need good pit stops, good pit selection and no mistakes throughout the race.”

In other words, once the Playoffs start the calm weekends at the racetrack will be over.

“Definitely the intensity will be kind of ramped up for us,” Stenhouse said. “Walking into the racetrack with not a ton of pressure is definitely going to be changed come Darlington week.”