All eyes will be on Matt Kenseth and Roush Racing this weekend at North Carolina Motor Speedway.
Barring an unlikely and untimely stroke of misfortune, Kenseth will clinch this year's Winston Cup championship, handing Roush Racing its first Cup title in 16 years in NASCAR.
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Matt Kenseth has all but wrapped up Roush Racing's first title ... (Getty Images) |
The title is well deserved not only for Kenseth, but also for team owner Jack Roush, who has poured his heart and soul into NASCAR the past 16 years and suffered through numerous near misses.
It will also be a thrill for Mark Martin, who has come close to winning the title several times and who brought Kenseth to NASCAR and Roush Racing. He is even a co-owner of Kenseth's No. 17 team.
Kenseth and all of Roush Racing deserve to celebrate. But while they do, they all know that things aren't all good at Ford's top multi-car operation.
While Kenseth has cruised to his first title, the rest of Roush Racing has been one big disappointment after another.
Veterans Martin and Jeff Burton have continued to struggle. Neither has won a race and both are going to finish outside the top 10 in points, a rare occasion for both drivers.
Burton's struggles have come at a bad time. Sponsor Citgo is leaving after this season and, so far, Roush has not landed a replacement, a precarious situation with just two races remaining.
Kurt Busch, one of the sport's top young drivers, has also been through his ups and downs this season. Expected to be a championship contender after a strong finish last year, Busch currently sits ninth in points and could fall out of the top 10 if he stumbles in the final two races.
Busch has won four times this year, but he has made more headlines for his problems off the track than his success on it. Following his widely publicized altercation with Jimmy Spencer at Michigan in August, Busch has struggled, winning just once and rarely cracking the top five.
And he has been in constant trouble with NASCAR for temper tantrums, outbursts and demonstrations of what NASCAR calls "disrespect." To teach him a lesson, NASCAR recently pulled his annual credential, forcing him to sign in at the NASCAR trailer each week like the common folk.
Before he can worry about winning races -- or championships -- Busch must clean up his act and get back in NASCAR's good graces.
Then there is rookie Greg Biffle, who was supposed to join the ranks of NASCAR's "Young Guns" this year. Instead, Biffle has been so frustrated the past few months that he has gone out of his way to praise the Chevy he has been driving in the Busch Series, comparing it unfavorably to the shortcomings of the Roush Ford he drives on Sunday.
Biffle's lone victory was a fuel-mileage race at Daytona. The rest of the time he has struggled to finish in the top 10 and is just 18th in points. He has been so frustrated with his team's performance that he has been rumored to be looking for another ride.
Things have gotten so bad that last week Roush made an unexpected change, moving Martin's crew chief, Ben Leslie, to Wood Brothers Racing, which is closely affiliated with Roush Racing, in exchange for Pat Tryson, Ricky Rudd's crew chief.
The crew chief swap was made to help change the fortunes of Martin and Rudd, two highly successful veterans who have struggled this year.
"We are just mixing up the program a little bit," Martin says. "We are trying to get (Rudd's) No. 21 car to run a little better, while at the same time improving the performance of the No. 6 car. Pat's been a part of our program and he's familiar with Roush Racing and all of our processes. We think that he will be able to come in and help provide a fresh look, and bring some new and different ideas to the table."
"Both crew chiefs and both teams need to improve," Burton says bluntly. "I think it's wrong when people don't have success and they don't look at the whole picture and don't understand what was going right and what was going wrong. This is an effort to take highly talented people and put them in positions that they can be successful.
"It's a shame that neither crew chief had the success this year that they wanted to have, but it's also a wonderful thing that our company is committed to keeping highly talented, good people and giving them a chance to do what it is that they do best."
Such a move has worked before. Martin struggled in 2001, going winless and slumping to 12th in points. At the end of the season, he and Busch swapped crew chiefs.
It worked for both of them. Leslie led Martin to a runner-up finish in points last year while Busch, with the veteran leadership of Jimmy Fennig, won four races.
Roush will need the same type of magic again to get his teams back on track.
Kenseth's championship will be nice, well worth celebrating after all these years. But his team's overall performance is not what Jack Roush is accustomed to.
