Roush Fenway Racing teammates Carl Edwards (99) and Matt Kenseth (17) lead Hendrick Motorsports' Jimmie Johnson (48) in the April 2010 Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)
The numbers don’t always tell the full story, but the numbers look pretty good this weekend for Carl Edwards as he attempts to stay on top of the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings.
Edwards has won more Sprint Cup races – three – at Texas Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 – than any other driver, and Roush Fenway Racing has been the dominant force in Fort Worth since the track opened in 1997. Roush won the first Sprint Cup race there, with Jeff Burton visiting victory lane, and RFR has a total of eight Texas wins. Second on that list is Joe Gibbs Racing with three.
Additionally, as Edwards wrestles for a championship, Roush is approaching a milestone. His team is only two victories away from scoring its 300th NASCAR major-series win. Roush has 125 Sprint Cup victories, 123 Nationwide wins and 50 Camping World Truck Series victories.
“We have been blessed with having a number of very able and very determined, capable drivers that have remained loyal to one another, the team, myself and the organization,” said Roush. “Without that loyalty and that continuity, we would have not been able to have achieved this type of success.
“We had great success with Mark Martin for more than a decade. And, of course, Jeff Burton made his contribution. Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth brought us championships, and, more recently, Carl Edwards.”
Although Edwards’ last Texas wins came in 2008 (he swept both Cup races), RFR scored big at TMS this spring as Kenseth led 169 laps on the way to an eight-second victory, one of the season’s easiest.
Edwards was third and Biffle fourth in that race.
The background gives RFR teams a dose of confidence entering familiar territory.
“It’s hard to put your finger on why we do so much better on mile-and-a-halfs than we do short-track racing, but it is historically something the Roush camp has done well with,” said Bob Osborne, Edwards’ crew chief. “It is true – we do feel more comfortable going to a mile-and-a-half than a short track based on our track record.”
Although the circuit’s 1.5-mile tracks have similarities, each has its quirks. At Texas, it’s the lumps, Osborne said.
“Texas is pretty bumpy,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing about that track compared to Charlotte. Charlotte is very smooth, but speed-wise they’re very similar. It’s just that Texas is bumpy, and you have to work around those, so your setup has to be a little more forgiving that what you can run at Charlotte.”
Edwards enters the Texas race eight points in front of Tony Stewart in the Chase standings. Stewart has one Texas win – scored in 2006 when he was driving for Joe Gibbs.
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 29 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
