My, how the mighty have fallen.
Though it has barely been noticed, thanks to Matt Kenseth's championship-caliber run, Roush Racing has quietly become one of the season's biggest disappointments.
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| Roush's bright spot Matt Kenseth has hung close to the top of the point standings. (Getty Images) |
After 20 races last year, Roush was the dominant organization on the Nextel Cup circuit, having won nine times. By the end of the year, it had won 15 of 36 and put all five drivers in the 10-team Chase for the Nextel Cup.
After 20 races this year, Roush has won just three times and has just two drivers currently in the top 10. Greg Biffle, who finished second in points last year, is 12th and still has a shot, but Carl Edwards, last season's first-year sensation, has sunk to 14th and is fading fast.
Aside from Kenseth, only Mark Martin seems like a safe bet to make this year's Chase, and he has yet to win.
Biffle, who led the series with six victories last year, has just one this season and can't run consistently enough to crack the top 10. Edwards, who won four times last year, is winless. He has already changed crew chiefs, and his Chase chances are slim.
Jamie McMurray, the highly touted driver who replaced Kurt Busch, has been a complete non-factor and one of the biggest disappointments of the season.
So what is going on with Roush Racing, the organization that seemed on the verge of taking over the whole sport just one year ago?
Kenseth and Biffle both say the team has fallen behind technologically, allowing teams like Richard Childress Racing (two drivers in the top 10) to catch them and Joe Gibbs Racing (four wins between Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin) and Hendrick Motorsports (three drivers in the top 10) to pass them.
"I think last year (we) ... won more races, but last year Greg really had their stuff figured out and we all learned a lot from that and incorporated that in our cars," Kenseth says. "Over the winter some of the other teams have caught up and have probably even passed us with some of the new setups and the new technology and new stuff going on. They kind of caught up to what we were doing and took that one step farther, and we're honestly just a little bit behind right now. We're not way behind, but we're not ahead of everybody like we were as a company last year.
"That's just the way this sport works. You have to keep working at it hard all the time and trying to make yourself better or you'll get passed."
No one seems to have gotten passed faster than Biffle, who won five of the season's first 15 races last season and nearly won the championship. Ford's new Fusion was supposed to make the Roush teams even more dominant, and Biffle was a preseason favorite to win the Cup.
