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Series sweep Roush Racing the common denominator in Victory Lane
Posted: Monday May 31, 1999 07:00 PM
CONCORD, N.C. (AP) -- The biggest winner in the Memorial Day weekend races was a 57-year-old engineer who wears a straw fedora and gets his kicks tinkering with cars instead of driving them. Jack Roush, founder and head of Roush Racing, began two days of good fortune when one of his cars, driven by Mark Martin, won the NASCAR Busch Grand National race Saturday at Lowe's Motor Speedway. He followed it up Sunday when Oldsmobile Aurora engines built by his company were in the cars driven by three of the top six finishers at the Indianapolis 500, including that of winner Kenny Brack. Later in the day, a Roush-owned Ford Taurus driven by Jeff Burton won NASCAR's longest race, the Coca-Cola 600. Shortly after that victory on Charlotte's 1.5-mile, high-banked superspeedway, Roush shrugged off attempts to place what he thought was too much credit for the successes squarely on him. "I'm not the single person responsible for any of that," he said. "I encourage folks, I function as a traffic cop, I impose my work ethic and certain standards for what I think needs to go into a race team and racing program, and we apply it to many venues." Burton, sitting nearby, wasn't buying into Roush's attempts to downplay his influence. "You win every race -- every race everywhere," Burton said in a playful, teasing tone. "Maybe we can get us a Formula One car next year." That's one circuit where Roush doesn't intend to venture. The way he sees it, there's no need. He's got enough going as it is. In addition to owning the Grand National cars driven by Martin, who has won a Grand National-record 38 races, Roush fields five cars on the Winston Cup circuit and plans to add a sixth driver in the coming months. He also has several related ventures, including his Livonia, Mich.-based engine business. One of its newest clients is A.J. Foyt, a four-time winning driver at the Indianapolis 500 and currently an owner of several Indy Racing League teams. "A.J. has a great program, and we were just fortunate enough that he gave us a chance to put our engine in his cars for testing a couple months ago," Roush said. "It proved to be a little better than what he had. He actually had one car with our engines in first, one in third and one in sixth, so I was real proud of that." Roush is one of a select few car owners in racing who actually works on cars as well. He can often be found leaning into the engine compartment with his sleeves rolled up while he turns a wrench. That propensity for helping the crew almost got him -- and Burton's car -- into big trouble. Instead, it ended up being a blessing in disguise. Roush was making an adjustment to Burton's engine before the final practice session for the 600 when he accidentally bent a valve. "I jumped in and I did something before I thought what I was doing," Roush said. His goof left the team with a choice: Try to bend the valve back in place and attempt to race 600 miles with the engine, or put a new engine in the car. They changed engines Sunday morning, several hours before the race. It worked. Burton led nine times for a race-high 197 laps in the 400-lap event. Roush said it was just another example of his employees working hard to make sure that even if things go wrong, they've still got good equipment. "We've been a factor in championships, and I'm determined to do that by bringing together the best mix of people that I can find," he said. "It's important to me that our engines and the quality of our chassis and the other things we do are recognized not only by folks in Winston Cup racing but other places as well."
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