Wednesday was Ford Day at the 2014 Sprint Media Tour. We visited with Roush-Fenway Racing and the combination of Wood Brothers Racing and Front Row Racing to begin the day.
Jack Roush was not present for the Roush-Fenway session. RFR President Steve Newmark commented that the whole organization had pleaded with Roush to take more vacation time, but Jack resisted. This time, his family made vacation plans without Jack knowing about it, so he had to go; Jack is on a Disney cruise during the tour.
Newmark went over the accomplishments in 2013. They included two of the three Cup cars making the Chase and the other being Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year. What was less pleasing to the organization was 9-13-19—the final points standings of the Cup drivers.
“There’s a high level of dissatisfaction with last year because we weren’t there, so what I can tell you is the true measure of an organization is how do you respond to a situation like that, and I will tell you that watching this off-season I haven’t been more proud to be associated with this organization watching Robbie Reiser and that team relentlessly pursue what has ailed us,” Newmark said. “We talk about a short off-season, but these guys had no off-season. It was 24/7 and we made some changes and I think what you’re gonna see and you’re gonna hear from the drivers up here is there’s a lot of optimism about where we’re headed and I think a lot of that is because of the efforts we made in the off-season.”
Chris Buescher was named as the driver of the No. 60 Nationwide car while Ryan Reed will pilot the No. 16 Ford Mustang in the same series. The veteran of the group is Trevor Bayne, who will return to the No. 6 Mustang for another shot at the Nationwide Series championship.
“I think we’re in a really good situation. To have AdvoCare on board as a company that’s such a great fit for me and my lifestyle, Bayne said. “I use their products for training all the time and I kind of inherited 400,000 fans with all their distributor base, so that’s really awesome to see. Obviously, last year they were able to build a champion and we’re hoping to continue that this season.”
Carl Edwards feels he did well in the regular season, leading the points before they were re-figured for the Chase, but ended up finishing dead last. He is happy that Jimmy Fennig will return as his crew chief.
“It’s great to have Jimmy back,” Edwards commented. “The guy has dedicated his life to this sport and we want to win races and championships for Ford.”
Greg Biffle has been in the Chase five of the last six years, but he is still chasing the Sprint Cup championship so he can have all three coveted titles. This marks the eighth year 3M has been with Biffle and Roush-Fenway.
Newmark announced a new fan program called, “Race Around America,” that would put fans in a Roush Stage 3 Mustang. Fans will have a chance to follow the drivers on several road trips this season and one fan will be the winner of the customized Mustang.
