Roush Fenway Racing is eager to post a victory on Sunday at Michigan International Speedway for a couple of reasons.
• MIS is a home track, located just west of Roush Industries headquarters in Livonia, Mich.
• A win would mark the 12th time a Jack Roush-owned car has gone to Victory Lane, breaking a tie with the Wood Brothers for most successful owner at MIS.
• And there’s the bounce-back factor; to atone for last weekend’s race at Pocono Raceway in which Carl Edwards lost most of his NASCAR Sprint Cup points lead to a rare engine failure.
The odds would seem to be in the team’s favor. Three Roush-Fenway drivers rank among the top four in Driver Rating at the 2.0-mile track. Edwards is first with a rating of 110.5. Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth are third and fourth (104.8 and 101.2, respectively). Five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson is second at 110.3.
The three Roush Fenway drivers count for six of the team’s 11 Michigan victories. Edwards is the most recent of the trio to win, capturing the track’s August race in 2008. He also won the spring race in 2007.
Biffle counts a pair of Michigan victories in 2004-05 while Kenseth won in 2002 and 2006.
Kenseth’s crew chief Jimmy Fennig put it this way: “Roush Fenway typically performs well at Michigan and it’s always something we strive for since Ford Motor Company is headquartered nearby.”
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