NASCAR: Three Changes Needed To Save Roush-Fenway Racing

Management

For this component, fans need to hold three people accountable: Team co-owners Jack Roush and John Henry II along with General Manager Robbie Reiser.

• Team Co-Owner Jack Roush: One cannot ignore the fact that Jack has significant accomplishments in his racing career. He is a member of both the International Motorsports and Michigan Sports halls of fame. His race teams have won 135 Sprint Cup races and two Sprint Cup championships.  He is a mathematician, physicist and engineer by training, and is fiercely loyal to the Ford Motor Company, where he once worked. That’s all good. The problem lies in the fact that his is a micro-manager by nature and wants to have his hand in everything. When your formal education is 45 years old and technology in this sport is evolving every day, that’s not a good recipe either. Successful executives will tell you that to be an effective leader, you have to first surround yourself with good people and then back away and trust them to do the jobs you’ve asked them to do. That is non-existent in the RFR organization.  This poor management style and inevitable communication nightmare is evidenced by Jack’s own quote, which can be heard often on SiriusXM’s NASCAR channel: “The drivers are not always aware of what’s being done to optimize their deal.”   This screams that driver input is neither sought nor received. It is also quite telling that communication from shop personnel to the drivers isn’t happening either. Everything goes through Jack, and the engineering sophistication and technological expertise required today are now beyond the skill set he possesses.  Sniffing spark plugs doesn’t cut it anymore. He has to concede day-to-day control to more contemporary folks. When team President Steve Newmark stated in the 2014 media tour that Jack is still here, “all the damn time,” that also speaks volumes.

• Team Co-Owner John Henry II: John has a better chance of explaining the infield fly rule to you than fixing a Sprint Cup team’s struggles, although the Boston Red Sox (of which he is the principal owner) are currently in last place in the AL East, so I’m not sure I would seek his opinion there either. He’s a commodity broker by trade, and is widely-known for developing sophisticated futures trading software and his ownership interests, both past and current, in other professional sports organizations. He’s a money guy looking for his next good investment, and brings nothing to RFR’s table that adds any value whatsoever, and certainly nothing capable of improving on-track performance. Since getting a return on his investment is important, he should take a greater say in how his money is being spent.

• General Manager Robbie Reiser:  Robbie was promoted to his current role at the end of the 2007 season. That’s almost eight years and two full generations of cars ago.  He now spends much of his time, “hiring, firing and writing performance reviews” according to him. “A bunch of detail work that I don’t like.”  That’s not a formula for success — the person who should be the organization’s main problem-solver and people-motivator hasn’t worked on a car for eight years and doesn’t seem to like his job.  Any organization will always take on the tone of the leadership, and that has been proven here as well. The “aw, shucks” leadership style doesn’t earn respect.  He needs to hold folks more accountable.