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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Can Ford Rise Up?
The Ford slump stretches beyond this year, Ford had only three wins in 2009...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted September 04, 2010   Hampton, GA
Carl Edwards is fifth in the Sprint Cup Series point standings. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
When the Chase for the Sprint Cup begins in two weeks, Roush Fenway Racing will have a 25 percent chance of winning the championship.

Three – Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle – of the 12 drivers in the Chase will carry RFR colors. In theory, that gives the organization at least as good a shot as Richard Childress Racing (which also is likely to have three drivers in the Chase) and a better mathematical chance than everyone else.

The general perception in and around the garage, however, is that Ford, which has only one win this season (by Biffle) will step into the Chase still racing on only seven cylinders, a wounded giant of sorts.

The season stretched all the way to its 21st race – Aug. 1 at Pocono – before Biffle broke through to victory lane. At no point this season has a Ford driver been atop the point standings. Kenseth hasn’t won a race since Feb. 2009; Edwards has been winless since November 2008. Of the seven drivers atop the lap-leader standings this season, none races for Ford. Perhaps most remarkably, Edwards has led only six laps all season. In the manufacturer standings, Ford trails Chevrolet and Toyota by big margins.

Those numbers look relatively grim, and the Ford season certainly is nothing like what the big guns at the Blue Oval would have liked.

There has been improvement recently, however. Four of Biffle’s last five races have produced top-eight finishes. All of Edwards’ last seven races have been top-12 runs, including four in the top five.

The result, then, is that Ford will roll into the Chase wounded but in recovery. The general perception is that Ford will have an uphill climb to the championship.

“I’m not too concerned about the perception,” Edwards said Saturday. “The thing I am frustrated with is I like winning. All of us at Roush Fenway have been working so hard and we haven’t won an amount that’s representative of that hard work. The goal is, whether we win or not, my mission is just to go win the championship.

“I think in the last seven races, we’ve scored enough points that if those were the first seven races of the chase, we’d be leading regardless of no wins. For me, I’ve won the most races in a season and scored the most points in 2008. I know what that feels like.

“I’d be just fine with going and winning that championship, whether or not we get a win. I’ll try my hardest, but that championship would be nice, and I think that would be fitting for Ford with everything they’ve done by not using our tax money and doing their business right and supporting racing through all this. It would mean a lot to win for Ford.”
Greg Biffle has 16 career Sprint Cup wins. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Biffle, Ford’s only winner, admitted that RFR has struggled during the season, “but we’ve run much, much better lately. The turning point was really at Chicago where Carl ran second and we ran well but had engine trouble.

“Before we were just trying to get to the top five. We’re going to win our share of the races now. We’re running competitive enough. We’re good enough to win as an organization at pretty much every track. I think we’re going to be winning some more races.”

Kenseth, who is eighth in points, said there remains uncertainty about what might happen in the Chase.

“You never know what’s going to happen each and every week, much less 10 weeks in the Chase,” Kenseth said. “You just never know what’s going to happen, so I think the 16 [Biffle] has certainly been our best car – the fastest car with the most speed and probably the most consistent lately. They’ve been pretty strong, and they look like they can run with most cars any given day, but you never really know what everybody’s got until you get to the first couple of weeks.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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