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BY DAVID POOLE
McClatchy Newspapers
Sprint Cup racing, Jack Roush will tell
you, is hard work.
"I had been to Daytona about eight
times with my road-race cars before I went to
Daytona with a stock car, and every time I had
been there I had always won," Roush said. "In
the road-racing we'd done for 14 years, we won
almost 48 percent of the races we entered and
virtually all of the championships that were in
front of us. So it really came as a real shot of
cold water, a dose of reality, to figure out how
hard it is to do this."
It took Roush 16 years to get his first Cup
title, with Matt Kenseth in 2003. But after Kurt
Busch made it two in a row for Roush the following
season, it has been four seasons since
one of the Roush-owned Ford teams has won
NASCAR's top title.
It has, of course, been three years since anybody
other than Jimmie Johnson took car owner
Rick Hendrick to the head table at the end of
the season in New York. And, of course, it was
one of Roush's drivers, Carl Edwards, who
pushed Johnson down the stretch in last year's
Chase for the Sprint Cup by winning three of
the last four races to fall just 69 points short in
the title race.
As soon as that season was over, Edwards
was already looking forward to a new year in
which he'll start as the chief perspective rival to
Johnson's dominance.
"You don't know how much I'm looking forward
to next year and the year after that and the
year after that," said Edwards, who
won a Cup Series best nine
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JEFF SINER/MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
Greg Biffle finished third in the 2008
Sprint Cup points standings.
races in 2008. "I feel like this is the best we've
ever been.
"I feel like (crew chief) Bob (Osborne) and I
are doing the best we've ever done. . I made
mistakes, but they're all so small and I feel like
we can fix a lot of those and, hopefully, eventually,
become a team a lot like Jimmie's got right
now - that just barely ever makes mistakes.
I'm excited about that."
Roush had the second- and third-place finishers
in last year's Chase, with Greg Biffle coming
in behind Edwards. Kenseth also made the
Chase despite failing to win a race..
"I think if we can continue to build. and
get better and better next year, hopefully we'll
put up a little better fight in the Chase," said
Biffle, who won the first two Chase races of
2008. "I've thought about what we need to do
- just a lot small things. You've got to go the
extra mile to be solid in this sport. Everybody
keeps raising the bar, everybody keeps getting
better and better, and you've got to figure
out a way to be the best."
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Aside from whether Edwards, Biffle or
Kenseth can unseat Johnson and give Roush a
third career Cup title, another interesting question
this year for Roush Fenway Racing, Ford's
flagship team, is whether it can have another
2005, the year in which all five Roush teams
made the Chase.
"I don't have a major concern in terms of
trying to fix a technical problem or trying to fix
a team problem," Roush said in looking ahead
to 2009. "The teams are functioning well, the
technical side is great, I just hope we can maintain
our pace and our position."
The pace that suggests David Ragan and
Jamie McMurray might be able to join their
teammates in the Chase would be based on the
improvement their respective teams showed last
year.
Ragan improved his average finish in the No.
6 Fords by nine positions from his rookie season
in 2007, averaging 15.6. He had 14 top-10
finishes after just three as a rookie, perhaps
most surprisingly, completed 10,661 laps in his
second year - more than any other driver in the
Cup Series in 2008.
McMurray had only eight top-10 finishes all
season in the No. 26, but five came in the final
six races and he finished third in each of the
final three races. McMurray will start 2009 with
a different crew chief, Donnie Wingo, with
whom McMurray worked before coming over to
Roush from Chip Ganassi Racing. Kenseth also
has a new crew chief, with Drew Blickensderfer
moving up from the Nationwide Series. He'll
join Chip Bolin, who'll remain with Kenseth's
No. 17 team as the lead engineer.
Bobby Labonte joins the Ford camp this year
in the No. 96 owned by Hall of Fame Racing in
cars that will be operated out of the Yates
Racing shops. He will be joined by Paul
Menard, who brings sponsorship from his
father's company to the No. 98 Fords owned by
Doug Yates and Max Jones. The Wood Bros.
don't have the backing they need to get the No.
21 on track each week, so that team plans a partial
schedule with Bill Elliott filling the driver's
seat for at least some of those starts.
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