(WOMR file photo)
When Matt Kenseth left Roush Fenway Racing to join Joe Gibbs Racing after the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Season, it was widely hailed as a win-win for both JGR and Team Penske.
JGR improved dramatically after Kenseth replaced Joey Logano, and Penske improved a like amount by picking up Logano, who disappointed at JGR but has since become a bona fide championship threat.
Lost in that win-win narrative, in 2013, was that RFR actually got worse, with Kenseth’s departure and subsequent replacement with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. And with the news this past Sunday that Carl Edwards is leaving Roush, almost certainly to join JGR next year, RFR could take another huge hit.
In 2011, RFR drivers Kenseth, Greg Biffle and Edwards combined for four victories (David Ragan also won once in a now-defunct fourth team car), 34 top-five and 56 top-10 finishes. In 2012, the final year the three were together at RFR, Kenseth, Biffle and Edwards totaled five victories, 28 top fives and 53 top 10s.
Last year, RFR’s lineup of Biffle, Edwards, and Stenhouse had just three victories, 14 top fives and 32 top 10s. One race past the halfway point of 2014, these three have two victories (both by Edwards who is leaving RFR), 7 top fives and 17 top 10s.
By comparison, last year JGR had 12 victories, 32 top fives and 51 top 10s. And that was a season that saw Denny Hamlin injured and reduced to the role of in-race test driver for much of the second half of the season.
With a 24th-place finish in Sunday’s Brickyard 400, Stenhouse moved past girlfriend Danica Patrick to move up to 27th in the Sprint Cup points standings. Kenseth, the guy Stenhouse replaced, is fourth in points now.
Now look at the numbers between the departing Edwards and his replacement, Trevor Bayne. Edwards: 357 career Cup starts, 23 victories, 105 top fives and 181 top 10s. Bayne: 53 starts, one victory, 1 top five, 3 top 10s.
One last eye-opening stat: RFR’s 2012 drivers have a combined 73 Sprint Cup wins in their respective careers. RFR’s 2015 drivers have a combined 20 Cup victories, 19 of those from Biffle.
It is impossible to look at those numbers and come to any conclusion other than that RFR will be hurt badly by the defection of Edwards. Assuming Edwards lands at JGR, he has the opportunity to help the Toyota squad raise its game, just as Kenseth did last year.
Jack Roush, and his people, might well be able to replicate that success with a driver lineup of Biffle, Bayne and Stenhouse. However, doing so likely will be a huge uphill challenge, and will not happen in a short amount of time, especially given the struggles the team is undergoing presently.(foxsports)
As has been demonstrated this year, Roush-Fenway Racing is no longer carrying the blue oval banner for Ford, as they have done in years gone by. This year it is the new comer to the Ford camp, Team Penske, who is, week after week, qualifying fast and winning races regularly!
There is no question that RFR is “in a rebuilding process”, and that it well may takes years to regain it’s one prominent place among NASCAR teams.
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
