Matt Kenseth, driver of the #17 Dewalt Ford, is one of the Roush Fenway Racing Team (Photo: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR
If it’s Michigan International Speedway, then it must be time for Roush Fenway Racing to shine. Sunday at MIS, 43 drivers will line up for the LifeLock 400, where team co-owner Jack Roush’s five-car squad will be among the favorites.
Every year since 2002, Roush Fenway Racing has won at least one NASCAR Sprint Cup race at the 2-mile MIS oval, with drivers Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards each posting two wins here during that period.
MIS is Roush’s home track and a place where his team is awfully tough to beat. In last year’s LifeLock 400, Roush placed four cars in the top 10, although the team lost a fuel-mileage race to Dale Earnhardt Jr., who hasn’t won since. In the August 2008 MIS event, Edwards won the race as Roush took a whopping four of the top five positions.
With that in mind, here are this week’s Five to Watch:
1. ROUSH FENWAY RACING I’m lumping together the entire Roush fleet here for two reasons: 1. Any of the team’s drivers could win here. 2. If I didn’t include them all, the top five might all be Roushkateers. That’s how dominant this team is here.
Of the Roush drivers, the one with the best chance to win on Sunday likely will be Carl Edwards, who has finished in the top seven in each of the last three Cup races in his No. 99 Aflac-backed Ford Fusion. But really, it’s a toss-up among Kenseth, Biffle and Edwards, each of whom has two career Sprint Cup victories at MIS.
Kenseth, who pilots the No. 17 Carhartt Fusion, has one victory and four top-five finishes in his last five MIS starts, while Edwards has two wins and no finishes worse than seventh in the last four races here. Biffle, too, had a top five in his 3M Ford the last time the series raced in the Irish Hills of Michigan.
