Roush Fenway Racing seeking Michigan redemption

Michigan International Speedway has long been a Roush Fenway Racing stronghold.

Its emphasis marked because the 2-mile oval is the backyard of both team principle Jack Roush and longtime supporter, Ford. Accordingly, no organization has been better at Michigan through the years. Roush-owned cars own a track-record 13 victories.

“Just walking through the garage you see people wearing Roush t-shirts,” driver Carl Edwards said. “There are a lot of people here from Roush Industries. The Ford folks come here. For us, there is no place where there is more pride in winning as a driver for Roush Fenway.”

But Roush’s typical dominance was noticeably absent when the NASCAR’s top series visited Michigan in June. That was when none of the team’s three drivers finished better than 20th -- the first time since 2000 that not a single Roush car finished in the top 10.

The performance was symbolic of the year Roush has experienced in 2014: substandard. Outside of a pair of Edwards victories, no other Roush driver has seen Victory Lane -- a slump which has Greg Biffle (12th in points) and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (27th) in desperate search of a Chase for the Sprint Cup bid with four regular season races remaining.

“Obviously, we’re trying to improve on our season,” Biffle said. “Anyone can see it. We certainly can admit that we’re off this season as an organization.”

Roush’s struggles have been most pronounced on intermediate-size tracks where a strong aerodynamic package is essential to running well. Michigan is one of those ovals, as are five of the 10 Chase tracks. To win a championship, an organization must be successful on 1.5 to 2-mile tracks. (Edwards’ two wins, Bristol and Sonoma, came on less aero-sensitive tracks.)

“We made some choices at the beginning of the season which we went down a road engineering-wise and car-wise what we thought to be the best,” Biffle said. “Everybody put 100 percent effort, full focus on that direction, and it obviously turned out to be a little bit of the wrong direction.”

That wrong direction has been gradually corrected. Longtime lead engineer Chip Bolin was dismissed by Roush in May, and an extensive testing program was implemented. The team even did the once unthinkable, allotting one of its four tests at Michigan.

“It was really disappointing this season when we were not competitive in the spring (at Michigan),” Biffle said. “That was really frustrating for us and so we focused on what we need to do to get back competitive on those types of tracks, and that’s why we elected to test there.”

The hard work has paid dividends with an uptick in performance, most evident by the change in Roush’s fortunes at Michigan. Two months ago, Edwards, Biffle and Stenhouse were well off the pace for the entire weekend. This time around the trio is where it traditionally is: upfront.

The fleet of Roush cars was fast throughout practice and that speed transferred to qualifying with all three drivers advancing to the final round of time trials for the first time this season. And in a sharp contrast to June, the team’s 14th Michigan victory seems realistically obtainable.

“For us, there is no place where there is more pride in winning as a driver for Roush Fenway,” Edwards said. “From the performance side, the first race here we were not the way we needed to be. We have hopefully stepped it up. If there is a Roush Fenway driver standing in Victory Lane it will be the biggest win of the year for our team.”