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Sprint Cup
CUP: Roush Team Much Improved
Jack Roush’s outfit looks strong as this season gets under way.
Jack Roush says that so far this Cup season, his team is having the strongest start he's ever recalled. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
It’s been a great start to the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup season for Roush Fenway Racing, even if the results haven’t always shown it.
Three times in the first four races, Carl Edwards has finished first or second and looks to be a legitimate championship contender and a threat to win most everywhere he goes.
On the other hand, Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth and David Ragan have posted a total of one top-five and two top-10 finishes in a combined 12 starts.
Despite some minor problems that have hampered the team’s ability to finish up front more often, team founder and co-owner Jack Roush, a cautious man by nature, is optimistic about what he’s seen so far.
“All four of our cars are running real well,” said Roush, who has two NASCAR Sprint Cup titles as an owner — 2003 with Kenseth and 2004 with Kurt Busch. “The Ford Fusions, I think, are as strong if not stronger. This is my 24th year of being in NASCAR competition, and I don’t recall a year when we were stronger than this. I think if it’s not our best year, it’s certainly our best year to this point.”
In fact, Roush said he doesn’t have much to complain about now, figuring that if the cars continue to be as good as they’ve been so far, better finishes surely will follow.
“The engine is doing a nice job,” said Roush. “The body is doing a nice job. We’ve got consistent cars and our engineering is standing tall, so it’s really a happy time for us. The cars are well driven and they’re adequately sponsored, so we’re anxious to see what we can do during the heart of this 2011 season.”
The heart of the 2011 season starts this weekend at Fontana, Calif., home of the 2-mile Auto Club Speedway. The so-called intermediate tracks of 1.5-2 miles in length have always fallen in Roush Fenway’s wheelhouse.
This weekend should be no exception. The Roush Fenway drivers have posted a collective five victories at the Southern California — all in the first ACS race of the year. Of course, this year for the first time the track has just one race, and the Roush drivers certainly will be among the favorites.
“The mile-and-a-half and two-mile race tracks are our meat,” said Roush. “Even in the worst of times that’s a place when we’ve still been able to muster a great effort and in a good time like this, I think there’s certainly as much hope and expectation of a good result as there was at Las Vegas.”
Roush, ever the cautious one, is not yet ready to declare victory, simply because the team is pretty much the same squad that struggled through much of 2009 and ’10.
“We have not worked harder this year than we did the year before,” Roush said. “We’ve got basically the same group of people together this year as we did the year before. If you come back and say, ‘Was it really just the simulations and getting the stars to line up and the car build activities. Was that just enough?’ Because we haven’t made crew chief changes. We haven’t made driver changes and we haven’t made dramatic changes in the componentry of the car.”
But ever since the advent of the new-generation Sprint Cup car in 2007, the difference between success and failure fell on a razor’s edge.
“It just speaks to the closeness to the competition and how fragile the packages are and how quickly you can either hit the sweet spot that allows you to trip the light fantastic without apparent difficulty or whether you just stay frustrated an inch from your goal,” said Roush. “The thing I’m telling everybody now is to put some of this currency in the bank. Don’t read everything that everybody says about how competitive you are and how it’s a result of the work you did last winter.
“We didn’t work harder last winter than we did the winter before, it’s just that we’re having a better result from it for the time being, but that, too, will pass and we’ll have to look at the bottom of some people that are in front of us, I’m sure, before the year is over.”
Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
Three times in the first four races, Carl Edwards has finished first or second and looks to be a legitimate championship contender and a threat to win most everywhere he goes.
On the other hand, Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth and David Ragan have posted a total of one top-five and two top-10 finishes in a combined 12 starts.
Despite some minor problems that have hampered the team’s ability to finish up front more often, team founder and co-owner Jack Roush, a cautious man by nature, is optimistic about what he’s seen so far.
“All four of our cars are running real well,” said Roush, who has two NASCAR Sprint Cup titles as an owner — 2003 with Kenseth and 2004 with Kurt Busch. “The Ford Fusions, I think, are as strong if not stronger. This is my 24th year of being in NASCAR competition, and I don’t recall a year when we were stronger than this. I think if it’s not our best year, it’s certainly our best year to this point.”
In fact, Roush said he doesn’t have much to complain about now, figuring that if the cars continue to be as good as they’ve been so far, better finishes surely will follow.
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The heart of the 2011 season starts this weekend at Fontana, Calif., home of the 2-mile Auto Club Speedway. The so-called intermediate tracks of 1.5-2 miles in length have always fallen in Roush Fenway’s wheelhouse.
This weekend should be no exception. The Roush Fenway drivers have posted a collective five victories at the Southern California — all in the first ACS race of the year. Of course, this year for the first time the track has just one race, and the Roush drivers certainly will be among the favorites.
“The mile-and-a-half and two-mile race tracks are our meat,” said Roush. “Even in the worst of times that’s a place when we’ve still been able to muster a great effort and in a good time like this, I think there’s certainly as much hope and expectation of a good result as there was at Las Vegas.”
Roush, ever the cautious one, is not yet ready to declare victory, simply because the team is pretty much the same squad that struggled through much of 2009 and ’10.
“We have not worked harder this year than we did the year before,” Roush said. “We’ve got basically the same group of people together this year as we did the year before. If you come back and say, ‘Was it really just the simulations and getting the stars to line up and the car build activities. Was that just enough?’ Because we haven’t made crew chief changes. We haven’t made driver changes and we haven’t made dramatic changes in the componentry of the car.”
But ever since the advent of the new-generation Sprint Cup car in 2007, the difference between success and failure fell on a razor’s edge.
“It just speaks to the closeness to the competition and how fragile the packages are and how quickly you can either hit the sweet spot that allows you to trip the light fantastic without apparent difficulty or whether you just stay frustrated an inch from your goal,” said Roush. “The thing I’m telling everybody now is to put some of this currency in the bank. Don’t read everything that everybody says about how competitive you are and how it’s a result of the work you did last winter.
“We didn’t work harder last winter than we did the winter before, it’s just that we’re having a better result from it for the time being, but that, too, will pass and we’ll have to look at the bottom of some people that are in front of us, I’m sure, before the year is over.”
Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
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