Ups and downs led Roush team to title

When you talk about Roush Racing in 2003, you really have to talk about two different Roush Racings. There's the Matt Kenseth Roush Racing, the one that won the Winston Cup championship with a stellar season.

	Jack Roush

Then there's the non-Matt Kenseth Roush Racing, the one that won a few races but had its ups and downs. While Kenseth stayed atop the standings for 33 consecutive weeks, none of Roush's other four drivers finished in the top 10.

That's a little unfair, sure, as Kurt Busch was 11th and Jeff Burton was 12th, but facts are facts. Roush Racing did, however, put all five of its drivers in the top 20 in points, which is a solid accomplishment.

Mark Martin had a disappointing season, falling from a runner-up finish last year to a 17th-place result, while rookie Greg Biffle ended up 20th.

For some reason, the consistency that swept Kenseth to the championship evaded Busch, Burton, Martin and Biffle. Still, it's hard to argue that Roush Racing didn't have a terrific year.

Twice, at Richmond in May and Phoenix, Roush had four cars finish in the top 10. Another eight times, three Roush cars ended up in the top 10. And two Roush cars finished there another 10 times.

Kenseth won only one race but walked away with more than $9 million in 2004. Busch won four times, second only to Ryan Newman, and dropped to 11th in the final race.

	Jeff Burton says he'll be back in the No. 99 Ford in 2004. Credit: Autostock

Burton didn't win, but finishing 12th in the points was a feat in itself since he had four DNFs because of engine failures. Engine problems plagued Roush Racing early in the year and then again late in the season, hitting Martin four times as well. After a quick start, with five top-fives in the first 14 races, Martin didn't finish in the top five the rest of the year.

Biffle, perhaps, was the most inconsistent, as you might have figured given this was his rookie season. He voiced his opinion rather loudly about his No. 16 team being thrown to the wolves early in 2003, forced to figured things out on their own without much help from teammates.

Despite being behind on its cars, Biffle's team won the Pepsi 400 at Daytona and had some other good performances. Late in the year, rumors were rampant that Biffle was looking around, but Biffle will be back with Roush next season.

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Through it all, Kenseth and crew chief Robbie Reiser were a rock of consistency. He won in the season's third race, at Las Vegas, and took over the points lead with a fourth at Atlanta the following week. That was in the midst of a seven-race streak of top-10 finishes.

Though Kenseth didn't win the rest of the season, his team stayed up front. He led 25 laps at Bristol, 65 at Texas, 82 at Charlotte, 10 at Daytona, 10 at Indianapolis, 37 at Darlington. Until a blown engine at the season's 29th race at Talladega -- while leading, mind you -- Kenseth had finished in the top 14 in 26 of 28 races.

The engine failure at Talladega and a crash the next week at Kansas in a back-up car helped the field inch closer, but Kenseth sealed the title with more consistency down the stretch: eighth at Charlotte, 13th at Martinsville, 11th at Atlanta, sixth at Phoenix and a clinching fourth at Rockingham.

Though he finished last at Homestead with a blown engine, Kenseth was all smiles as he celebrated the title in New York City.

	Mark Martin finished 17th in the 2003 Winston Cup standings. Credit: Autostock

"Overall, if you look at our year as a whole and not pick out one or two races, it's been a really great year for us," Kenseth said. "We've been able to run up front. We've been very competitive.

"At the beginning of the year, especially, we had lots of chances to win races. We were only able to win one, but we had a lot of opportunities. We put ourselves in position to win and led some laps and ran real good.

"We've been able to take days that looked like they were gonna be bad days and we had trouble like flat tires and stuff like that and turned them into top 10 runs. I think that's what a championship team is made of."

And it made a championship car owner out of Jack Roush for the first time. After many years of frustration and more than his share of arguments with NASCAR, Roush got to sit at the head table.

"My feelings are that I feel like I just crashed through a plate glass window," Roush said. "It's been painful getting through it. I've fussed and I've complained more than I should about things that probably didn't mean much in the last month (of the season), but it's really been tough emotionally to think about the four times we were there with Mark and just coming up short.

"We've learned to come up short and to be able to get through it this time with Robbie and with Matt, it's just a tremendous relief."

	Greg Biffle won the Pepsi 400 at Daytona. Credit: Autostock

Roush wasn't so relieved with his other four teams. Busch swept both races at Bristol, and won at California and the first Michigan race but stumbled down the stretch, including a five-race DNF streak starting with a blown engine at Dover in September.

Of course, you can't talk about Busch without talking about his off-track troubles. Busch and Jimmy Spencer had another run-in, this time after the race at Michigan in August. Spencer punched Busch while the Roush driver was sitting in his car in the garage, with an in-car audio catching Busch taunting Spencer before the punch.

That got Spencer a suspension and Busch a fine, but the real trouble came after the race at Bristol, a race Busch won, getting the lead by shoving Sterling Marlin out of the way (Busch later apologized, saying he made a mistake). While the fireworks were shooting off in Victory Lane, Bristol's fans showered the track with boos that drowned out the public-address system.

Busch later had his annual NASCAR credential pulled for "very unprofessional" behavior after he snap-spun his car around on pit road at Martinsville.

Burton had no such trouble off the track, but on it, his team had trouble with consistency. Burton had a streak of four consecutive top-10s, followed by five finishes outside the top 10. He finished with three top-five and 11 top-10 finishes, and despite rumors to the contrary, said he'll be back in the No. 99 in 2004, with or without a sponsor.

	Kurt Busch won both races at Bristol in 2003. Credit: Autostock

Martin, despite two blown engines in the first four races, was running well early in the year, getting to 10th in points with a second at Pocono and a ninth at Michigan in June. But the Pocono result was the last time he finished in the top five, and Martin had only three more top-10s the rest of the season.

Still, it's hard to argue that Roush didn't have a good season. Roush Racing won six times -- not including five victories by Jon Wood and Carl Edwards in the Craftsman Truck Series -- and took home the Winston Cup championship.

While Roush and Ford seemed to slip in the second half, the blame being an older car and an older design engine, help is on the way. Ford gets a new nose, a new tail and a new cylinder head for 2004.

"Whether that's enough will be dependent on what we do with it, but I certainly look forward to the challenges of next year and the opportunities we've got for next year," Roush said. "I'm glad to be there with Mark and with Matt and with Kurt and with Greg and with Jeff as we go forward. When we finish with Homestead we'll be leading in the points all winter."