NASCAR: Three Changes Needed To Save Roush-Fenway Racing

Personnel Issues

• Mark Martin: When the veteran driver indicated his desire to scale back his schedule after the 2006 season and only drive in certain races, Roush couldn’t make it happen. That is a horrible way to repay a driver for 18 years of loyalty. Martin put a lot of money in Jack’s pocket — finding a way to accommodate Martin’s part-time request was the least Jack should have done in return.

• Matt Kenseth:  Another long-time RFR driver took an opportunity to get out after the 2012 season when Jack was having trouble finding the money to pay him.

• Carl Edwards: Was on the fence about re-signing a contract in 2011 and decided to stay. Losing the 2011 Sprint Cup championship on a tie-breaker to Tony Stewart surely made him feel as though the future was bright, so he signed up again for 12-13-14 only to regret the decision. His sponsor Aflac subsequently left as well, and when the 2014 season ended, Carl hit the door for Joe Gibbs Racing.

• Greg Biffle: Sterling Marlin once referred to Biffle as a “bug-eyed dummy.”  Biffle has since openly questioned the direction of the team and has to be thinking that re-signing was indeed a dumb decision. The former Truck and Busch series rookie of the year and champion has to be sad watching his opportunity for the NASCAR “hat-trick” that would come with a Cup series championship slowly fade away with each passing uncompetitive weekend.

• Current drivers (in addition to Biffle) Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.:  Bayne’s popular victory in the 2011 Daytona 500 is his career bright spot. He has done nothing since then, and isn’t showing signs of reversing that trend anytime soon. He’s assumed David Ragan’s role of keeping the fab shop guys in a job. Stenhouse is happy to run around in the mid-teens / high-twenties with his girlfriend, so I don’t see anything changing there either.