CONCORD, N.C. -- Jack Roush, co-owner of Roush Fenway Racing, often seems to use the Cup preseason media tour each January to get something off his chest. This year, on Tuesday during an event in the Nationwide Series garage at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Roush went off unsolicited on what he perceives as skewed television coverage of the sport he loves.

"I was not prompted to make this comment -- but I will go on and make it anyway because I speak my mind most of the time," Roush said. "If you look at our sport and the way it's reported, and the way the communications box and the television box works in relation to the rest of what's going on, there is not a sports activity in the world that's got better critics and more knowledgeable critics than NASCAR does as we go to competition in front of the fans. We have not had the level of support from the TV studio box that the other sports have.

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The competition is great. It wasn't bad. It wasn't subject to criticism for every move that NASCAR made or every move that a team made.

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- JACK ROUSH

"I would hope that FOX and ESPN and everybody else really think about what they are doing. We had more passes last year than we've ever had; we had more passes for the lead than we've ever had; we had more different winners than we've ever had; we had more cars finishing on the lead lap than we've ever had. The competition is great. It wasn't bad. It wasn't subject to criticism for every move that NASCAR made or every move that a team made. But sometimes it sounded that way, coming out of the communications [or television] box."

Roush insisted that the state of the sport is strong and even claimed that fans have not complained about anything regarding competition at any of the 12 tracks owned by International Speedway Corp.

"ISC has done an analysis and looked at what they've got -- and for all of last year, from all of their race tracks, they have not had one complaint from anybody who bought a ticket about something regarding a race not working the way they thought. So there is no complaint from the fans regarding competition," Roush said. "The complaints have come from reporters and the media that has maybe a vested interest -- if you look at [announcers and former driving champions] Darrell Waltrip and Rusty Wallace and all the ex-drivers and ex-crew chiefs that are out there. It's not unreasonable to say they've got some ax to grind over something that frustrated them in their careers when they were on the firing line. We need to reel that back in; that needs to be something that's not carried out front to the fans and to the public.

"We need to talk about how many passes we're having. We need to talk about how close the racing is on the final laps. We need to talk about contentious things are in the garage and the rest of it, and not fault the teams for decisions they make and not fault NASCAR for the government that they provide. NASCAR racing is the best-run form of motorsport anywhere in the world. It may be the best-run form of sport anyplace in the world. I don't know enough about tennis and golf and football and basketball really to make an absolute statement there. But NASCAR from a motorsport point of view does a better job with their house, keeping things fair and consistent and safe, than anybody else in motorsports." (Continued)