It’s an old cliché but nowhere else does it fit perfectly than in NASCAR and Roush Fenway Racing has been putting it to work in 2011. That cliché? What a difference a year makes.

The flagship Ford team has turned around their embarrassing 2010 campaign to become familiar with victory lane again and become serious championship contenders. Saturday night in Charlotte RFR driver Matt Kenseth won again and team owner Jack Roush couldn’t have been happier with Ford’s seventh win of the season.

[media-credit name=”CIA Stock Photo” align=”alignright” width=”241″][/media-credit]“I’m really proud of what Matt and Jimmy [Fennig, crew chief] did tonight,” said Roush. “With all the engineering and technical support behind these teams, it comes down to decisions, the last 20 percent of the decision is worked out between driver and crew chief.”

Roush praised his championship quality crew chief and the performance of Kenseth. Saying that he was sitting back waiting, knowing that Kenseth would break loose from the middle of the pack and get to the front. The victory was Kenseth’s third of the season and 21^st career. As the season turns toward its final five races of the season, Roush believes Kenseth and Fennig who will be one of the factors in the championship.

However, Saturday night was about Kenseth and more. For RFR it was further prove that they are indeed back in form. Not only are they back in form they’re better than ever. All four RFR drivers led at least one lap Saturday, combined they led 117 of 334 laps and they all finished inside the top 15.

“I don’t know if you saw the same race that I did, but we had seven of our cars tonight that ran in the top 10 most of the night except for the problems we had,” said Roush about Ford when asked about the race.

“We are at the top of our game as far as our mile-and-a-half program,” he said. “There’s other teams that have got good programs but nobody has got a better mile-and-a-half program than us and including tonight there was three races left, mile-and-a-half races left in the Chase and I felt really good about that. Ford has given us great stuff for our Fusion, we have a good aero package and mechanics work well based on the lab testing and engines make a lot of power.”

Roush has good reason to be satisfied and say that his teams are the best of the best on mile-and-a-half tracks. The statistics back it up. Kenseth and Edwards together have won three races on mile-and-a-half tracks and if you count the non-point events held at Charlotte in May RFR has won five such races.

Charlotte in fact, has been nothing but sweet to Roush. David Ragan won the Sprint Showdown, Edwards won the All-Star race and now Kenseth wins the Bank of America 500. RFR even won both Nationwide Series races held at CMS this season and had it not been for a fuel mileage gamble in the Coca-Cola 600, they might have won every race held at CMS in 2011.

And just for giggles, throw in the fact that Ragan’s girlfriend, Jacquelyn Butler, won the “Better Half Dash” charity race Saturday afternoon. Kenseth capped off an what continues to be an incredible season for Roush and it shouldn’t be surprising that he was the one to do it.

Driving the same car that he dominated with at Texas and won, as well as dominated the Coke 600 but finished 14th, Kenseth scored his second win at CMS. His first came in May of 2000 when he won his first career Sprint Cup Series race; he’s also won the non-point Sprint All-Star race, 2004. It doesn’t end there; Kenseth also has three NNS wins at Charlotte.

Not only has RFR turned things around, Kenseth has as well. He went winless in 2010 after winning the first two races of 2009. Now he’s got three checkered flags in 2011 and the season isn’t over yet. He’s looking to win his second Cup title in five weeks too.

“I’m happy to have won obviously,” said Kenseth. “It’s been 20 races, which doesn’t seem that long because I don’t know how many before that, I think it was 70 some, so you’re always thankful. I’m always thankful to get to victory lane. You never know when you are going to win your last race – I’m certainly in a great position to be able to win races and these give me the cars and the crew and the opportunity to do that.”

Kenseth went on to say that another reason he was glad they won was because he didn’t want to be the weak link. Feeling as though there were other races they should have been first to the finish line, Kenseth said he was glad he wasn’t the one who cost the No. 17 team the victory. Roush though wasn’t ‘embarrassed’ that his teams had not won more because it was strategy not performance that cost them.

“But we are in championship form,” said Roush. “And in my 24 years, I’ve never had better cars for the championship stretch than we have got and we are anxious to see how it’s going to work out.”

And says Roush about having those great cars and wining in the Chase, “I don’t feel vindicated, I just think that the hard work everybody’s done is paying off, and we re getting what we deserve.”

Carl Edwards took over the championship points lead away from 2-Time Champ Jimmie Johnson as Jimmie had a vicious crash near the end of the race. Carl’s teammate Matt Kenseth won the race and took the bonus points along with it to try and climb back into the championship battle with just five races left to go in the season. The standings now look like this:

[media-credit id=2 align=”alignright” width=”227″][/media-credit]1.Carl Edwards LEADER
2.Kyle Busch – 15 (Finished 2nd to Kenseth. Led most laps. Earned extra point. Talladega will be make it or break it for Kyle.)
3.Jimmie Johnson – 25 (Still has chance to get #3, but will have to wait until after Talladega to see for sure.)
3.Kevin Harvick – 25 (Sixth Place Finish has him tied for third with Johnson.)
5.Matt Kenseth – 32 (Win helps his cause, but maybe out of contention.)
6.Kurt Busch – 76 (Another ho-hum finish dampens championship hopes.)
7.Jeff Gordon – 78 (Started to come on late, but was involved in a spin when David Ragan tried making it three wide into one. Kahne was also involved, but they still finished well. Gordon finished 21st and it looks like the Drive for 7 will have to wait until 2012.)
8.Tony Stewart – 111 (Too little too late for the Two-Time Champion.)
9.Ryan Newman – 117 (One win won’t get you a title.)
10.Brad Keselowski – 140 (Under the lottery system, you have a shot at the title, but you need to be consistent all year not just in the middle of the season to be a contender, but big rebound from 2010! I will give you that!)
11.Dale Earnhardt Jr. – 154 (Well a big rebound this season for Jr. compared to 09-10, but the crew can’t seem to put their nuts in place and Jr. has little or no confidence in himself. That alone will destroy a championship run.)
12.Clint Bowyer – 210 (The departing Bowyer is the only bright spot on RCR besides Harvick.)

Who is missing? Denny Hamlin.

Kyle Busch still hasn’t won a Chase race during his career but on Saturday night he came the closest he could. Busch dominated the second half of the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte and looked to be headed toward his fifth win of the year until a few late race cautions changed everything.

[media-credit name=”CIA Stock Photo” align=”alignright” width=”248″][/media-credit]“It was a good race for us,” said Busch following his second place finish. “Certainly we started pretty deep in the field and made our way up through there slowly and steadily, but it was really tough to pass and make up ground. You could be two-tenths faster than the guy in front of you and run him down and catch him and slow down and just get stuck.”

Busch said drivers had to be creative in order to pass. After qualifying 25^th yet starting at the rear of the field because of an engine change, the No. 18 made his way through the field as patiently as he could. The lack of passing though started to cause some frustration for Busch as he vented over the radio but through cautions and pit strategy he got out front and didn’t look back. Busch would lead the most laps, 110 of 334.

“I don’t think we made a change to the car all night,” he said. “We just kept running with it and just kept letting the race play out, and let it do what it was supposed to. Low and behold we thought we were going to win and you get down to all these late restarts and give it away.”

Crew chief Dave Rogers complimented his driver on the performance, saying Busch did a tremendous job being patient. Knowing they had a fast car Busch just had to take care of his part on the track while the crew did theirs on pit road. Rogers says they ‘nailed it’ in every aspect from being solid and fast over the wall to making the right calls.

“I was thinking four [tires] and they were both tugging on my shirt and saying no, no we need two, let’s get track position,” Rogers said of his engineers. “It seemed to be the way to go. So, total team effort. I really wish we could have gotten the win. Kyle loves Charlotte Motor Speedway, and we would love to be in the media center celebrating right now. To start 43rd and finish second, I don’t think we can complain about that.”

For the second straight night Busch came up one position short and to a Ford no less, a Roush Fenway Ford. After stating on Friday that he felt they had superior power, Matt Kenseth charged in the final few laps to catch and pass Busch for the lead. Then he held him off during a fury of late race cautions.

Left balancing the frustration of not closing out the race, yet bringing home a decent finish, Busch said he was glad the team finished where they should have. The first four races of the Chase haven’t played out like the Joe Gibbs Racing team anticipated after having another solid regular season. At Charlotte, the whole package almost came together.

“Just got out-drove there by Kenseth on the restart,” Busch said. “He just flat out drove right past me like I was standing still. The frustration is, again, we did not finish where we wanted to, which could have been a real win, a real highlight.”

Then of course, comes the fact that Busch knows he still hasn’t won in the Chase. Something he says he’ll keep hearing about but hopes to end soon. Perhaps next week at Talladega where he’s won before or at Martinsville two weeks from now where he’s steadily improved.

More importantly however, Busch gained four positions in the Chase standings. He’s now just 18 points behind with five races left in the 2011 season. It means winning a Cup race at Charlotte for the first time will have to wait but he showed on Saturday that even when starting last he can still be a contender and he’ll have fun proving it.

“There was a point in which the leader was going into [turn] one and I was coming off of [turn] two,” said Busch of early in the race, “so, that kind of leaves you a little bit worrisome. But you just have to let it play out. Certainly there’s going to be some cautions in there that will allow the field to bunch back up and everything like that. It’s all fun I guess when you can start back there and run well.”

And while Busch knew that there was the potential he could get caught up in a wreck like a few of his fellow Chase contenders, Busch made sure he was careful. Seeing others in front of him get out of shape kept him on his toes and didn’t help his nerves as he made his way to the front. Even at the front though there were still a few close moments.

“There was a couple of cars that came off turn four within the first 10 laps pulling sideways and I don’t know how they didn’t wreck,” he said. “I was checking up to see what was going to happen, whether they were going to go shooting through the grass or keep it straight … but overall, that’s just a product of racing.”