Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Kyle Larson are honoring the late Bryan Clauson this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Both are wearing a helmet honoring Clauson, and Stenhouse's car has a paint scheme that Clauson ran with in the 2008 Xfinity Series season. At that time, Fastenal was the sponsor on Clauson's No. 40.
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Clauson, 27, died on Aug. 7 from injuries in a midget car race in Kansas. A sprint-car star, Clauson had also drove in the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR Xfinity Series.
On Friday at Bristol, Stenhouse said that he was "super excited about the paint scheme that Fastenal and Roush Fenway let us run this weekend."
"Even though he was younger, I kind of always looked at him as an older brother because he kind of did everything before I did," Stenhouse, 28, said of Clauson. "He let me move in with him and we had a lot of fun in North Carolina. He showed me the ropes of stock-car racing and then obviously he was the best there was running sprint cars, so to be able to run his paint scheme, his family is super excited and we are, too, at our team."
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This weekend @BMSupdates, @StenhouseJr is honoring Bryan Clauson by running his '08 @FastenalCompany scheme. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/tzuahKmi88
— Hunter Thomas (@HunterThomas08) August 19, 2016
Stenhouse also paid tribute to Clauson at the recent Knoxville Nationals. Stenhouse took a lap in Clauson's car before qualifying on Thursday.
"I drove another sprint car during one of our off weeks with him, so to get back in his car and give it another trip around Knoxville, which he really loved being at Knoxville, there was not a dry eye in Knoxville when we took that car around," Stenhouse said. "As Bryan always said, we parked it in victory lane for him and it was super emotional."
Larson pointed out aspects of the helmets that epitomized aspects of Clauson's life and career.
"Bryan, this design, I think was his favorite he had; he ran it this year some," Larson said. "He won a lot of big races with some pink helmets. This has the puzzle pieces for the autism stuff. That meant a lot to him. He does a charity event during Chili Bowl that raises a lot of money for autism. His good friend Ben has autism. It's cool to come here and show our support to Bryan and his family.
"… Just do what we can to show our support. He was a great person, awesome race car driver; we have both finished second to him quite a bit. I hate to see him go, but we are going to do our part to support him."