Edwards, Roush Fenway have fun in Roush's 'playground'
By Lee Montgomery - Associate Editor
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
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Jerry Markland / Getty Images
Carl Edwards (left) and Jack Roush spray each other with champagne after Edwards won at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday.
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First, there was Carl Edwards. Then David Ragan, followed closely by Greg Biffle. Matt Kenseth slipped into the wall off Turn 4 trying to pass another car but made it work. Finally, Jamie McMurray crossed the finish line.
All five Roush Fenway Racing Fords finished in the top 10 of Sunday’s 3M Performance 400 at Michigan International Speedway, with Edwards leading the way with his fifth victory of 2008. Four Roush Fenway cars were in the top five, with Kenseth somehow getting past Mark Martin off the final corner.
Putting five drivers in the top 10 is an impressive feat, but it’s not the first time car owner Jack Roush has accomplished it. Roush has done it three times before, in fact: Las Vegas in 1998, Michigan in 2004 and Charlotte in 2006.
But that doesn’t diminish the achievement. Not for Roush, who owns automotive business not far from the 2-mile Michigan track.
“It’s great for me,” Roush said. “This is an occasion where we have two suites – actually one inside the track and one outside – that we celebrate with our customers and employees. We’ve got about 3,000 employees in the area that work on prototype cars for all the manufacturers, and we have a great time with that.
“And of course this is my private playground. I told somebody this is my playground, and they misunderstood what I meant. As an avocation, I’m an aviator, and I come out here and this is my aeromatics box. I come out here and test, and I do loops and I do rolls and just kick up my heels and have a great time.
“It’s really home for me. It’s a chance to play in front of the home crowd. It means a lot to Ford Motor Co. It means a lot to me.”
Edwards’ victory was Roush’s 11th at the track as a car owner – matching the Wood Brothers for the most at Michigan. Roush has won at least one race a season at MIS for the last seven years, too.
“Very happy to see that Ford in victory lane,” said Ragan, who matched his best career finish with a third-place result. “It would’ve been a long plane ride home if the other manufacturer would’ve got in victory lane.
“But it’s good to see all the Ford fans and Jack Roush and everybody excited. That was a good weekend for those guys and a good day for everybody, I think. We all were pretty close to the top 10, and I don’t know what it is about this place, but we all seem to run well and have good speed, the cars run good. So it was a good day for the whole organization.”
What’s the secret? Of course, if there is one, Roush certainly wouldn’t tell anyone. But it starts under the hood, Roush said, with Roush-Yates Engines.
“There’s a lot of credit for a track like this that needs to go to Doug Yates and the engine guys,” said Roush, himself a veteran engine guy. “They did a great job with the engine. … Right now we’re still running stuff that is fundamentally the same as a production, which nobody else is, and for those guys to be able to prepare the engine and develop it and keep it competitive through the all things that have been developed by all the other manufacturers, it’s just a real incredible feat.”
Ragan, too, credited the engine department for producing enough horsepower to win at Michigan. But the young driver said there was more to it than engines.
“We probably put a little more effort into this race than some of the others,” Ragan said. “Maybe we take a few more chances and really get pumped up a little bit more being that there’s such a presence of Ford Racing people here and a lot of Jack’s employees and family’s up here.
“We don’t anything out of the box. We just always are making sure that we cross our Ts and dot our Is when we come up to Michigan because it is an important race for our team owner, and it’s fun to see him happy when we leave here, Michigan.”
Roush clearly left happy after the Michigan race, confident in the knowledge he has a driver in Edwards who could deliver him another NASCAR championship.
Edwards is second in the Sprint Cup standings and could be the leading contender to Kyle Busch once the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup begins Sept. 14 in New Hampshire.
Edwards remembers a Michigan race four years ago where he made his Cup debut, so winning on the same track is always special
“It means a lot to me,” Edwards said. “Four years ago today I ran my first Cup race for Jack Roush, and he took a giant gamble on me, I felt like at the time, to put me in that car. Jack won the race that day, I believe Greg won it, and we finished 10th, and all five of the cars were in the top 10, and to be a part of that again today, for Ford Motor Co., for Roush and for all the guys, it’s an honor.”
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Carl Edwards
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