Fearing NASCAR penalties for violating an embargo on outside testing with the Car of Tomorrow, Roush fell behind on the development of the new car last year. Hendrick Motorsports, on the other hand, chose another approach by hiring former Busch Series champion David Green to test and help accumulate data for the COT.

Not surprisingly, when the new car debuted at Bristol last March, Hendrick was light years ahead of most of the rest of the competition.

"I was mostly responsible for not making the commitment for the Roush Fenway teams to go underground and to get our Goodyear tires and go to racetracks that NASCAR wasn't sanctioning for the tests. I got the deal behind," Roush said Thursday at his headquarters, the last stop on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Media Tour hosted by Lowe's Motor Speedway. "Roush Fenway didn't start testing until the first of June last year."

The approach to the 2008 season is vastly different.

"We were testing in Nashville yesterday," he said. "We have a very aggressive testing program. We think we're caught up on the deficit that we had, certainly on the introduction of the Car of Tomorrow last year. We think that we're ready to start on a level playing field with the guys that started testing early

"I do apologize for not getting the results that we needed last year, and we are fiercely determined to right that. We won seven races last year as an organization -- the Roush Fenway guys did -- and we think that's not more than half of what we should have won. We're working hard, and the Car of Tomorrow is feeling very comfortable for us, as we go forward."