March 3

Jack Roush isn’t a large man. He wouldn’t draw much attention if you saw him in your local grocery store.

But put him in the garage area at any NASCAR track and the world around him will sit up and take notice.

Jack Roush began his NASCAR operation in 1988 with driver Mark Martin

Because Jack Roush is on top right now; After opening the season with Nextel Cup champion Kurt Busch finishing second, Mark Martin sixth and Carl Edwards 12th in the Daytona 500, the Roush team was even better last Sunday at California Speedway.

Greg Biffle won with Busch third, Edwards fifth and Martin seventh.

In the NASCAR Craftsman truck race last Friday at California, Roush's Ricky Craven was third and rookie Todd Kluever fourth.

It took Jack Roush 16 years and a near death experience before Roush won his first championship in NASCAR's top series.

Now, Roush Racing is again a contender, trying this year for its third straight title. And despite looking forward to the 2005 season, Jack knows that a third straight title is a daunting task.

“It's going to be a good year for us no matter what because I know how difficult it is to repeat as a championship team because the competition is just incredible.” He said.

Roush believes in his people however.

“When I take a look at the other teams around the garage area, I wouldn't trade the people I have working for my teams for anybody. They're a special group."

Only 2003 Cup champion Matt Kenseth has struggled through the first two races, finishing 42nd at Daytona with an engine failure and being knocked out of the top 10 and all the way to 26th at California by a late-race flat tire.

Two races into a 36-event season, Roush Racing is looking strong. Busch is the points leader with Martin third, Edwards fourth and Biffle fifth.

"I really think it kind of speaks for itself," Biffle said after last Sunday's race at California.

"I think almost all of our cars led a lap. It just says how strong our organization is and how well we share our information and how good our wind-tunnel people are. I think it says a lot for our engine program. (California) is hard on engines, and I think it speaks for what is to come this season with our cars."

Born in Covington, Ky., in 1942, Roush was raised in Manchester, Ohio, a town of 2,500 people. He attended Berea College and received a mathematics degree with a minor in physics in 1964. He was recruited by Ford Motor Company that year and moved to Detroit to work on the processing of car assembling and tooling.

Roush had always been fascinated with engines and was determined to work in that area. He then went on to obtain a Master’s Degree in Scientific Mathematics from Eastern Michigan University in 1970, which he felt was needed in order to move into the engine research and development area.

While working for Ford, Roush was drawn to the company’s extensive motorsports activities. Always the organizer, he soon surrounded himself with others who shared his enthusiasm for going fast in a drag racer. Roush joined a group called "The Fastbacks" in 1966.

Working for Ford provided steady income, but security and professional accomplishments were no substitute for going faster than the last time, and faster than anybody else at the racetrack. Roush left Ford in May of 1969 and began buying his own equipment to improve the racing performance of "The Fastbacks." It was not long before he was doing development work for other teams.

Roush worked at Chrysler as an engineer for one year before leaving in 1970 to start his own engineering business. As "The Fastbacks" disbanded that year, Roush began his next venture into racing by forming a partnership with Wayne Gapp. For the next five years, the duo attracted national attention by winning events and one championship each in NHRA, IHRA and AHRA with their Pro Stock racer.

Roush also spent some time teaching in between his racing ventures. He taught mathematics, physics and a variety of automotive subjects at Monroe Community College in Monroe, Mich., in 1971 and 1972.

Roush was involved exclusively in drag racing until 1978, and advanced in power classes to the NHRA Pro Stock division. He also managed to find time to provide engines for race teams in other sports, such as the Pike’s Peak Hill Climb and various powerboat and oval track series.

In 1976, Roush ended his partnership with Gapp and formed Jack Roush Performance Engineering. Roush’s success at the track and his reputation as a performance engineer helped deliver project after project to his doorstep. He stopped operating the drag racing team, but kept doing race business for other teams. Roush primarily built engines for other teams throughout the early 1980’s.

In 1982 Roush formed a partnership with Zakspeed Racing to run GTX and GTP cars for Ford in the United States. Zakspeed had much success racing in Europe and wanted to partner with Roush for the US races. Some of their drivers included Kevin Cogan, Bobby Rahal and European superstar Klaus Ludwig.

In 1984, Roush returned to competition in the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) road racing series and a legend was born. In the first year, he won the manufacturer's title for Lincoln-Mercury.

Since then, Roush Racing has claimed 24 national championships and titles in the two series, including 12 manufacturer’s championships. Some of the drivers who helped Roush achieve his 119 road racing victories are Tommy Kendall, Wally Dallenbach, Jr., Scott Pruett, Willy T. Ribbs and current Craftsman Truck team general manager, Max Jones.

In 1988, Roush moved south and expanded his racing business to include a NASCAR Winston Cup team with a young driver named Mark Martin. During the team’s inaugural season, Martin won one pole and earned 10 top-10 finishes.

In October 1989, Roush and Martin claimed their first NASCAR Winston Cup victory at North Carolina Motor Speedway

A list of the drivers who have driven for Jack Roush since starting his NASCAR operation in 1988, reads like a “who’s who” of NASCAR: Wally Dallenbach, Scott Pruett, Mark Martin, Bill Elliott, Ricky Rudd, Kyle Petty, Ken Schrader, Robby Gordon among them.

Now comes a name that might just add to Roush’s legacy.

Greg Biffle.

It was Biffle who gave Roush his first NASCAR title when he won the truck championship in 2000, and added the Busch championship two years later. Now, Biffle would like nothing better than to hand his boss a third straight Cup title.

"I've learned a lot about myself and the way you have to race to win in Nextel Cup," said Biffle, who has been in some trouble on the track by being overly aggressive. "I really think we've got everything we need to be contenders. I think Jack gives us everything we need. Now we just have to put it together and make it happen."

It wouldn’t surprise crew chief Doug Richert if Biffle becomes the first driver to win titles in all three of NASCAR’s top touring circuits.

“I really feel this team is ready,” Richert said. “The team has matured, and we’ve figured out what we need to give Greg for him to win.”

Richert knows a bit about calling the shots for championship teams. He was the crew chief in 1980, when the late Dale Earnhardt won the first of his record-tying seven titles.

Roush has stood behind Biffle even when the driver made disparaging remarks about the team last year.

“There has never been any doubt about his talent,” said Roush, who signed Biffle sight unseen after a recommendation from former NASCAR champion Benny Parsons. “He has the ability to do just about anything he wants in this sport, and I expect him to do it for our team.”

But, after just two of 36 races, Biffle doesn’t want anybody to get too excited.

He shrugged when asked if his victory here is a sign of things to come.

“I don’t know,” Biffle said. “I’ll let everyone else figure that one out.”

For the moment at least, Jack Roush has it all figured out. The world of NASCAR is his and the rest will have to play catch up if they hope to deny him his third straight Cup championship.

These old boys are still good
by Ed Hinton
Orlando Sentinel, March 3

NASCAR's New York office must be nervous. Maybe a satellite linkup with the L.A. guys for an emergency conference? Suddenly, there's a setback. There are throwbacks.

Just when all seemed either ultrapolished (Jeff Gordon) or rock-starrish (Dale Earnhardt Jr.), there is a clear and present threat of resurgence by -- harrrumph -- good ol' boys.

Greg Biffle holds the trophy Sunday, at California Speedway in Fontana, Calif., after winning the Auto Club 500. (AP/Joe Cavaretta)

The two in question aren't good ol' boys in the Tom Wolfe sense. They never ran 'shine; they're not from North Carolina, nor even the South per se.

They're from opposite corners of the country: Greg Biffle is from Vancouver, Wash., and Joe Nemechek is from Lakeland.

But they're old boys, all right -- Biffle 35, Nemechek 41 -- and to get where they are, they've busted their knuckles and greased their fingernails turning their own wrenches on their own cars. They've driven, and slept in, their own trucks.

Just when you thought their kind didn't exist anymore, here they come.

Biffle has won two of the past three Nextel Cup races. Little noticed nor long remembered was that Biffle won last season's finale at Homestead-Miami. If he hadn't, his more-heralded teammate, Kurt Busch, might not be champion today. If Biffle hadn't won, Jimmie Johnson would have, and collected 10 bonus points. Johnson lost the title to Busch by eight. Nemechek also finished last fall just beneath the radar, his victory at Kansas City, Kan., somewhat obscured by the hoopla surrounding the Chase.

To open this season, Biffle and Nemechek looked strong enough at Daytona in practice and preliminaries that you had to count them as darkhorse candidates to win the 500. But in the shuffle of restrictor-plate racing, Nemechek finished 13th and Biffle 25th.

As Gordon said, the results at Daytona guaranteed nothing about the rest of the season, to be run mostly on unrestricted tracks.

Then came last Sunday at "Los Angeles," as the NASCAR media guide proudly places the California Speedway venue, though it's actually 40 miles to the east, on the heavy-industry side of town, in the smog-receptacle suburb of Fontana.

Fox commentators made much of the fact that later that evening, the Oscars would be awarded nearby. They interviewed actors in the pits. They tied NASCAR to Hollywood as closely and as fervently as possible.

Then who wins the race? Biffle, the guy with, well, something other than the face and demeanor of a screen idol. If you ask me, he's a dead ringer for a young Dave Marcis, a bootstraps success in NASCAR from 30 years ago.

Then Biffle climbs out of his Ford and blurts, in sheer gear-head-ese, "Oh, man, I needed those two rounds of wedge back in that we took out."

When a man has spent more of his life underneath race cars than in them, he tends to think and talk like that.

Had Biffle not been spotted by NASCAR driver-turned-broadcaster Benny Parsons, he still might be a nomad of the Northwest, drifting to this or that short track, running NASCAR's Weekly Racing Series, a euphemism for local Saturday night bullrings.

But Parsons talked team owner Jack Roush into giving Biffle an audition, and thus he was given a ladder up through the Craftsman Truck and Busch series.

Can Biffle drive? Listen: Anybody who can hold on to a car that's gone that squirrelly, that loose, that late in a race, and not only keep from wrecking but win, can drive.

But for the boys in New York and L.A., some of whom are more comfortable in Giorgio Armani than in jeans, pure driving isn't enough. You need to be a spokesman, a faceman, a star in the Hollywood sense.

Back in January, I was talking with Nemechek, who lives in Mooresville, N.C., to be near the center of the NASCAR industry, about whether his breed might be near extinction.

"It's getting harder and harder," he said. "Man, I remember working 20 hours a day building my own cars, doing all my own stuff, and you just don't do that anymore. . . . The days of the good ol' boy coming in are gone."

He thought some more, changed his mind a little, raised his head, smiled.

"There's still hope for anybody," he said.

Thanks to Nemechek and Biffle, that hope remains alive for the little guys underneath their own cars on Saturday nights.

ORIGINAL STORY-Orlando Sentinel