After two races in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, the Roush Fenway Racing duo of Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle find themselves fourth and fifth, respectively, in the point standings. Edwards trails leader Matt Kenseth by 36 points while Biffle is 38 points back. Car owner Jack Roush spoke to Ford Racing on Tuesday and gave his thoughts about what has transpired in the first two races and why he’s guardedly optimistic about these final eight.
JACK ROUSH, Car Owner – Roush Fenway Racing – WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS AFTER LOUDON? “We’ve been challenged some at Loudon, but we’ve won there as well although we haven’t recently run as well there as we have at a lot of places. We made some significant gains at Loudon. The cars were better than they were in the spring and, quite frankly, better than I feared they would be. I didn’t consider Loudon to be one of our strongest tracks, but Carl ran well and Greg did as well. If the race would have been a little longer, he’s confident that he could have made a run at the win with the 20 and 18. He made up substantial ground on them and felt if he had enough laps he could have overhauled them. Whether that’s true or not is up to debate because a lot of times it’s easier to catch somebody than it is to pass them. But the Chase so far has generally been OK. The 18 and the 20 have jumped out there to a pretty good lead. The 48 is not too far behind, but our cars are fourth and fifth and we’re standing by to have the strength of our program manifest itself on the mile-and-a-half race tracks. You always hope for the best when you go to Martinsville and you hope for the best when you go to Talladega, knowing those are places that there could be a crash on any lap. Carl won at Phoenix earlier and we’re certainly gonna build on that with the improvements we’ve made in the car since then, so I’m guardedly optimistic. You would have liked to have won the first two races that the 20 car has or run second in the first two races as the 18 car has, but we’re certainly better than the seven or eight guys that are behind us, depending on which car you’re looking at, and I’m looking forward to being able to move up and be a factor in the championship before the season is over.”
YOU SAID AFTER CARL WON AT RICHMOND THAT YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE IN AS GOOD A SHAPE TO CONTEND FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP THAN YOU EVER HAVE BEEN. AFTER TWO RACES DO YOU STILL FEEL THAT WAY? “I still feel that way. As I said, we hadn’t expected that Loudon would be particularly good for us. We were a little disappointed at Chicago, but I’m looking forward to going to Kansas, Charlotte, Texas and Homestead as we look at what I think are our strengths for the balance of the year. I feel that we almost dodged a bullet at Loudon and look forward at having the same kind of luck at Martinsville and Talladega.”
DO YOU FEEL YOUR TEAMS ARE RUNNING AS WELL NOW AS THEY HAVE ALL YEAR AND YOU’RE PEAKING AT THE RIGHT TIME? “We started off the year with a clean sheet of paper on a car that was unknown and assigned our development priorities and our human assets to what we thought was the biggest opportunity for performance optimization and looking back at it, I think other teams made better judgments than we did in terms of the things they focused on – to put their attention and spend their money and their time on – but we’ve covered enough of the car now to feel like we’re not really lacking in any area. We’ve had a significant improvement in the downforce based on some things we did, and we’ve got enough time with those modifications to adequately understand what the aero-balance is and to be able to use it to our best advantage. I think that our cars have peaked. I think that our experience is adequate and if we can just have some good luck and not break a part, or get involved in a crash that’s not our fault, or run over a piece of debris, or have something happen that would be beyond our control, if we can dodge those bullets, I think there’s a very good chance that the kind of things that have happened to us in the recent past with bad luck that we couldn’t control, if those things visit the 18 and the 20 in one race, then we could be right back in it.”
DOVER HAS BEEN GOOD TO YOU THROUGH THE YEARS, SO DO YOU HAVE HIGH HOPES THIS WEEKEND? “Dover is a good track for us. We weren’t as good and were a little disappointed in our performance in the spring there because it wasn’t up to our standard. But the improvements we’ve made and the things we now understand about the new car that we didn’t understand when we were there before, I think, will come to bear. The guys have got great expectations and are really looking forward to Dover. We think that we’re preparing to win and have good top-five finishes with all three of our cars. We’ll see how practice unfolds, but I’m very optimistic about Dover and feel that we can get ourselves on track and close some of the gap on the 18, the 20 and the 48.”
