Roush pushing hard in '08 after falling behind in '07 (cont'd)

Kenseth and Edwards both made the Chase, with Kenseth eventually finishing a respectable fourth and Edwards ninth.

But Roush expected more after taking on the Fenway Group as a partner at the beginning of the season, largely in response to Toyota's entry into the Cup Series as a manufacturer. Roush said at the time that he feared Toyota's presence -- a fear that at least for last season proved to be largely unfounded as Toyota teams struggled mightily and didn't win a single race.

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That is expected to change this season, with Toyota having added highly successful Joe Gibbs Racing to its lineup of multi-car teams.

"I don't think that the concerns I had about Toyota last year are manifested in what the Gibbs organization is doing," Roush said. "They already had a top-running team. They had a good engineering program. They had a good strategic program as it relates to development of the pit crew. They understood how to build good, fast cars. They just transferred that knowledge from the Chevrolet part over to Toyota.

"I think they'll run as good or better with the Toyota than they would have with the Chevrolet."

That doesn't mean that all of Roush's concerns about Toyota's entry into the Cup Series have disappeared.

"The thing I was concerned about with Toyota was if they came in with the high-handed [attitude] where they break all the moorings and all the molds and all the conventions for budget. The other manufacturers couldn't keep up with it; the sponsors couldn't keep up with it. And by and large, we had the prospect of being overwhelmed by it -- as they tried to overwhelm Formula One and as they overwhelmed the open-wheel racing in this country," Roush said.

"They've not been successful -- because they either haven't invested in the right teams or they don't have the right strength within their organization to know how to spend their money. They're spending a lot of money. But ... certainly they didn't realize the effect of what they were doing in 2007 that they might have. It wound up being basically a miserable failure for them, in terms of the results that they were looking for."

Roush said that he is under no illusions about that continuing to remain the same.

"I'm sure that they will prevail. The weak teams that they've got, the teams that aren't functioning well that they can make stronger they will fix, and ultimately they will be a factor in advancing technology and changing the financial model," Roush said. "The trouble could come in tying the economy in with pressure on the rest of the automobile manufacturers. If NASCAR doesn't control that, if they don't watch it, well then it places in jeopardy upsetting the balance between the manufacturers.

"But right now I expect the Gibbs organization to do a real nice job, and I don't credit Toyota with spending their money in a way that it would have any effect on that. The way they've spent their money and what my concern was will eventually manifest itself in how many other [Toyota] teams are able to pull themselves out of the dirt and put themselves in a situation where they can best-ball either my own organization or [Richard] Childress [Racing] or [Chip] Ganassi [Racing] or Hendrick [Motorsports], by just the amount of money they spend and the way they spend it.

"I'm still fearful that it may come to fruition."