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Roush-Fenway hopes to build on small success

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Updated Oct 4, 2009 2:52 PM ET
     
 
Matt Kenseth finished third at Dover International Speedway Sunday, a bright spot in the recent runs of his Roush Fenway Racing team. While that was a highlight for Kenseth's team — it was his best finish since winning the second race of the season — how much of an impact will the setups used to garner it have on the organization as a whole? And could Kenseth's performance signal a renewed Chase effort for teammates Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle? Edwards, for one, certainly seems to hope so. And Biffle, who felt he was on track for a top-five before finishing 13th last weekend, sees things looking up as well. Team co-owner Jack Roush and his group have worked diligently to figure out where the team is falling behind others — Kenseth's opening pair of victories are the only ones for the team's five drivers this season — and to make back up the lost ground. The group entered last weekend's race with an idea of where it needed to make changes. Kenseth's team unloaded in good form and had time in the practices to try new things, developing more of a baseline for the actual race. And then, on Sunday, the group felt that paid off. "Last week was a different approach and seemed to work out a little better," Roush Fenway general manager Robbie Reiser says. Reiser points out that now that the team has found "an area that helps and works on these cars, you get a little direction, and you can start moving forward." It's not as if the teams have been completely off base or haven't been contending for top-10 finishes of late. Still, Kenseth's was the top finish for a Roush Fenway team in the two Chase races to date.

The question now is, how much of what has been learned can have an impact on the organization's two drivers who are in the championship hunt? Can it pay off with a renewed push to the title? "Each team functions a little different; each driver is a little different," Reiser says. "I couldn't say that one thing will help everybody. It definitely gives everybody something to look at and something to work on and try to make it work for their particular situation." It's not that the Roush Fenway Racing teams have been terrible — obviously they have a pair of drivers in the championship battle — but this certainly hasn't been the kind of season the group expected. Not after Edwards won nine races and finished second in the championship race last season. Not after Biffle won two Chase races and finished third in 2008. At this point in 2008, Roush Fenway had three drivers in the Chase and four in the top 15 in the standings. Edwards was leading the point standings with six wins. He had 21 top-10 finishes, 13 of them top fives. Biffle was third in the standings with a pair of victories. He had 13 top-10s, 10 of them top-fives. Kenseth was 10th overall with 16 top-10 finishes, seven of them top fives. David Ragan was 14th with nine top-10 finishes, five of them top fives, and Jamie McMurray was 19th with six top-10s. Flash forward a year and things are dramatically different. Edwards is 11th in the standings with 11 top-10 finishes, seven of them top-fives. Biffle is ninth overall with 13 top-10 finishes, eight of them top-fives. Kenseth missed the Chase for the first time since the format was implemented in 2004. He is 13th in the standings and has a pair of wins in the season's opening two races. He has 10 top-10 finishes, five of them top-fives. Ragan is 30th in the standings with only one top-10 finish this year, and McMurray is 23rd with three top-10 finishes. Still, the drivers and teams can find positive aspects of this season. Biffle, 138 points behind leader Mark Martin two races into the 2009 Chase, sees a lot of good things within his organization. He just thinks they need to find a way to carry more speed.

Freeze frame

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"Great engines; we've got (a) good pit crew," he says. "We've got great mechanical parts. We've got great wiring and electrical and mechanical. We've had great success with all of that, but we're just lacking that extra little piece of speed that we're searching for. We're killing ourselves trying to find it, and we'll just continue to look. We're not going to give up." No, instead they're going to try to build on the good moments and the successes. The team has logged countless hours trying to figure out exactly what it will take to move back to the point where its drivers are challenging for wins week to week. It hasn't been a horrible season, but this is a team used to much more regular trips to victory lane, accustomed to challenging the men on top of the standings. Kenseth says that all of the teams obviously want to see more top performances and return to a position where they are once more challenging for wins on a weekly basis, and suddenly the 2003 Cup champion has become the banner team for the organization when it comes to that. "Matt was good, so we'll go back and learn from that," Edwards said after finishing 11th to Kenseth's third at Dover. "It's frustrating, but not as bad as it could've been, you know?" The organization certainly hasn't been idly sitting back and enduring the setbacks. They've worked to improve overall, to find more solid footing and gain back lost ground on the competition. "We've tried a lot of things throughout the bulk of the season to find an edge and find something that would be better than we had last year, and by and large, we have not had the level of success in finding new things that were different and better that we had last year, but that's to be expected as this car becomes more and more refined and the rules stay more and more in place," Roush says. "Everybody, sooner or later, figures out what has been the cutting-edge secrets that a few teams have had, and the other teams have caught us for the things that we knew last year that were holding us in good stead." Still, the group is not without hope. Roush is confident that the corner can be turned, that the organization is close to breaking through and that it is still capable of contending for the 2009 title. "Compared to where Hendrick (Motorsports) is, I think (it is) certainly the heat this year, but I think based on the way things have gone for us generally that we're the match of anybody else, and I look forward to proving that in the Chase," he said prior to the race at Dover. And then Kenseth turned in his third-place finish. Certainly that wasn't the first bright spot for the organization or the first time one of its drivers had been running among the leaders in a race. And clearly it still wasn't the finish that Roush Fenway desires. Reiser remains cautious and works to make sure he doesn't overstate the finish's impact. "This is only one week and only one good run in one car," he says. "It's not like we're going to sit here and celebrate. Plus this thing is about winning, it's not about finishing third. It's definitely a step in the right direction with one, but we still have work to do." But it was a performance that the team is no doubt studying and working to improve on. And one that might have given fans a little renewed hope when it comes to Roush Fenway's championship potential.

Rea White is a writer for NASCAR Scene, which is published weekly, 46 weeks per year. Visit www.scenedaily.com for more information.

Tagged: David Ragan, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, Jamie McMurray, Matt Kenseth, Mark Martin

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