Autostock
One of the victories for Jack Roush this season has been the tremendous season from David Ragan.1on1: Jack Roush
Despite no championship, owner very pleased with '08
type size: + -
It appears the Sprint Cup championship quest of the No. 99 Ford driven by Carl Edwards for Roush Fenway Racing will fall short this season, but that doesn't mean it's been a lost season for long-time owner Jack Roush.
After struggling at times on the Cup side last season and finishing with a total of just seven wins between his five teams, Roush's teams have rebounded with a strong year overall this season as they head into the season's final race at Homestead, Fla.
Flying high
| Close call: On April 19, 2002, while flying an experimental light aircraft near Palos Verdes Lake outside Troy, Ala., Jack Roush clipped power lines and crashed nose-first into a small lake. He was saved only after the heroic efforts of Larry Hicks, a local man and retired Marine, who pulled an unconscious Roush from the water and revived him after Roush had stopped breathing. Roush, who had inhaled water and gasoline and nearly drowned, subsequently spent 12 days in a hospital recovering from closed head injuries, fractured ribs, a collapsed lung, broken ankles and compound fractures to his left leg. He was flying again a few weeks later. |
| Prized possessions: In addition to owning two fully restored, World War II-era P-51 Mustangs, Roush also owns a T-6 trainer aircraft (once referred to as a "flying classroom" for WWII-era pilots) and a Beechcraft Premier 1A business jet that he uses to commute weekly from Detroit to Roush Fenway Racing headquarters in Concord, N.C. |
| Time in the sky: Roush has logged more than 8,000 hours in the air, piloting mostly small aircraft. |
| His own zone: The last time Roush needed a boarding pass to climb onto a commercial aircraft for a flight as a passenger was when he flew to Europe for a vacation last New Year's Eve. He can't remember the last time he flew commercially on a domestic flight. |
Edwards sits second in points behind Jimmie Johnson and is tied with Kyle Busch for most Sprint Cup victories this season with eight. Greg Biffle won the first two races of the Chase and sits third in the points, while Kenseth is eighth, promising young driver David Ragan is 13th and hard-charging Jamie McMurray is up to 16th after riding a wave of stellar late-season finishes.
Q: What does it mean for Roush Fenway Racing to compete at Homestead during what is billed as Ford Championship Weekend?
Roush: The other racetracks for the most part are tied up with other manufacturers in terms of space and endorsements. To be able to have our manufacturer enjoy that bit of exposure at the last race of the year, on the championship weekend, is a really good thing for me.
We've had great luck at Homestead. We've won three or four or five times there. So we enjoy going there because we're used to winning there. We've won two championships that wound up there, and would like to have a third.
Q: No matter what happens regarding that, won't you look back on this season with great satisfaction in terms of what you've accomplished?
Roush: We've done everything that we've hoped to do. We've run better than in years when we've typically won championships. We've won more races and run better as an organization than in either 2003 or 2004. And certainly as we look at the year, we won't say we missed [the championship] because we went the wrong direction on stuff -- strategies, or as far as engineering is concerned. Our engineering has been great; Ford support has been great for the engineering. Our teams performed well.
It just hasn't worked out for us on the racetrack [with a championship]. The result is something you cannot absolutely determine based on preparation and opportunity, or execution, and we've been on the bottom side of that this year. We've just been involved in wrecks and had some mechanical things happen that we could not anticipate, and that's put us where we are. (Continued)
| POPULAR ALERTS | ||||
|
Roush Fenway Racing
2008 Cup stats
| Edwards | Biffle | Kenseth | Ragan | McMurray | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wins | 8 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| T-5 | 18 | 12 | 9 | 6 | 3 |
| T-10 | 26 | 17 | 20 | 14 | 10 |
| Poles | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Avg. St. | 12.5 | 13.5 | 16.9 | 17.8 | 20.4 |
| Avg. Fin. | 9.7 | 12.7 | 16.2 | 15.3 | 20.5 |
| Rank | 2 | 3 | 8 | 13 | 16 |
Remember To Check Out
All External sites will open in a new browser window. NASCAR.COM does not endorse external sites.
© 2001-2012 NASCAR | Turner Sports Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
NASCAR.COM is part of Turner - SI Digital, part of the Turner Sports & Entertainment Digital Network.
© 2001-2012 NASCAR | Turner Sports Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. NASCAR.COM is part of Turner - SI Digital, part of the Turner Sports & Entertainment Digital Network.
