Inside Motor Sports

Heavy Hearts  

Owner Jack Roush's plane crash sent a shock through his resurgent racing team

By Mark Bechtel

Jack Roush had every reason to expect his 60th birthday to be one of his happiest. After a miserable 2001 season in which the four Winston Cup cars he owns won just twice and none of his drivers finished higher than 10th in the points standings, his stable was on a roll. Matt Kenseth had won two of the season's first nine races, and all four Roush drivers were in the top 11 in the points race.

Less than 48 hours after the crash Kenseth finished 30th at Talladega. David Walberg

Late last Friday afternoon Kenseth was the final driver to qualify for the Aaron's 499 at Talladega, putting his Ford on the grid in the 37th spot. Barely an hour later, approximately 100 miles away, Roush was celebrating his birthday by flying an experimental light plane near Troy, Ala., when the aircraft hit a power line and crashed upside down in a pond. Roush was pulled from the plane by a retired Marine with search and rescue experience who lived near the crash site and who resuscitated him before paramedics arrived. As of Monday afternoon Roush was in serious condition at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center.

It was a shocking blow to an organization that was finally beginning to gel. In the off-season Roush had shaken up his teams, removing crew chief Jimmy Fennig from Mark Martin's car because he felt that Martin and Fennig, who had been together for more than five years, had become too set in their ways. Roush also thought that having a young driver, Kurt Busch, 23, working with a young crew chief, Ben Leslie, 29, was a bad idea, so he put Fennig on Busch's car and Leslie on Martin's -- a move that immediately paid off. Martin, who finished 12th in the 2001 standings (his worst finish in 13 years), is currently ninth. Busch, who was 27th as a rookie last year, is fourth.

Roush largely left the other two cars, driven by Jeff Burton and Kenseth, alone. Burton, who finished 10th last year, has remained steady, standing 11th after Talladega. Kenseth, meanwhile, has transformed himself from a sophomore flop into a title contender. The Wisconsin native beat out Dale Earnhardt Jr. for Rookie of the Year honors in 2000, then failed to finish better than fourth in a race in 2001. This year, though, the 30-year-old has four top five finishes, including wins at Rockingham and Texas, and is second in points, 109 behind series leader Sterling Marlin. "There isn't one magic thing," says Kenseth. "We've improved a little bit in a lot of areas, and that's turned into a pretty good-sized gain."

One of the most significant gains has been in engine performance. The Roush operation struggled to find horsepower last year, but this year it has gotten help from an unlikely source: NASCAR. In an effort to control expenditures, the sanctioning body instituted a rule requiring teams to use the same engine in qualifying as in a race, placing a premium on durability -- a hallmark of Roush's teams.

But last Friday's crash makes Kenseth's already unclear future murkier. (The highly coveted Kenseth was rumored to be on the move after last season, and his contract runs out after this season.) At least Roush, who has never won a Winston Cup championship, has delegated more responsibility to the crew chiefs, so daily operations shouldn't be slowed in the short run by his absence. "He lets us go do our deal," says Robbie Reiser, Kenseth's crew chief. "His aim is to give us the money and the equipment to win races, and he does that." For now Team Roush will be racing with extra incentive, and heavy hearts.

Issue date: April 29, 2002

For more Inside Motor Sports see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, April 24. Click here to subscribe to SI.

 

Related information
Stories
Inside Baseball Inside the NHL Scorecard: The Lying Game SI Online: Current Issue and Archives
Multimedia
Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video
Search our site	Watch CNN/SI 24 hours a day
	Sports Illustrated and CNN have combined to form a 24 hour sports news and information channel. To receive CNN/SI at your home call your cable operator or DirecTV.