The Fall of Roush Racing

jack roush had steered all five of his cars into the postseason of the ten teams in the chase half drove for roush racing it's 2005 and nascar fans are starting to witness the birth of a new dynasty in the sport with two champions two young guns with so much potential and a future hall of fame legend leading the whole team there's no stopping the dominant force known as raus fenway this year they have done the unthinkable and have had all five of their drivers make it into the 10 team chase for the cup 50 of the playoff roster was roush fenway drivers not only that the team has accumulated a total of 15 wins throughout the year there is no telling how many championships the team is going to win in the coming years except one problem though that'll never happen in fact it would be at this moment where we would see jack rouse and roush racing peak in the sport wait how could this happen what caused the team to become such a dominant force in the sport only to be reduced to a mid-tier team collecting a win or two every three to four years well to be honest it wasn't something that happened overnight it was a debacle that happened in a span of almost 8 to 12 years that reduced the team of roush racing to what it is today as time went by we would see each and every car from ralph's fenway racing get affected by this that was able to compete for the 2005 championship because of this why don't we dive into each car one by one and see where it all went wrong for each one of them here at roush racing [Music] in 2005 kurt bush was coming off his first and only championship run in his career and they were looking to repeat the process again in 2005. this will be his final year with the team as he looks to jump ships on over to penske racing to drive the iconic number two miller like machine in 2006 onward it looks like everything is going in the right direction as he comes into the chase with three wins with his most recent one coming from the regular season finale at richmond and he will be starting fifth in the points after eight races into the chase it looks like kurt busch will not be able to score back-to-back championships but that's not the most concerning thing going into the final two races of the 2005 season cup dreams have become a nightmare and roush suspended bush for the final two races of the chase replacing him with journeyman kenny wallace kurt bush's 2005 season would end two races short after a confrontation during the fall phoenix race weekend with maricopa county sheriff's deputies on november 11 2005 when he was pulled over for suspicion of drunken driving and cited for reckless driving roush racing had enough and responded two days later the president of roush racing jeff smith famously declared they were officially retiring as kurt busch's apologist this meant that kurt bush was out with roush fenway for good janet mcmurray would be kurt busch's replacement as he would be driving for the now re-numbered number 26 crown royal machine unfortunately for roush racing mcmurray would not find too much success with the team as he would be only able to snap two victories in the four years that he was with the team this was well off on what kirk bush was able to do for the same exact team nascar would implement a rule where teams would not be able to extend past a four card team starting in the 2010 season meaning one of the roush fenway machines had to go j mcmurray would be released by the end of the 2009 season and returned back to earnhardt ganassi racing where he would have the best season ever in 2010 thus claiming one of the five teams within five years of that remarkable 2005 season the next driver to lead the team was the kid mark martin mark martin was already on the verge of retiring from full-time racing by the 2006 season as he stated at first that 2005 would be his last however since there wasn't really another driver who was ready to take over the number six machine as mcmurray would move on over to kurt busch's ride instead of martins in 2006 mark decided to stay with the team for one more year mark martin had a decent performance in the 2006 season however he was never able to score a win in his final year with the team mark martin would lead the team at the end of the season and would go to a part-time schedule with the newly formed team of jen racing his replacement would be david reagan a driver that they did not initially plan to take over the car but due to terrible runs by todd klieber in the zero six machine they decided to change their mind david reagan would fail to meet expectations for the team as he would only crack the top 20 in points one time and would fail to make the chase in the five years he was with the team he would be replaced by trevor bain at the end of the 2011 season trevor bain would also fail to meet expectations as he would never crack the top 20 in points once during his stint in the number six machine leading to ryan newman taking over the car in 2019 to this day the number six car has only been in victory lane once since 2005. matt kansas was always a top performer for roush racing during his time there with one championship two daytona 500s and 25 wins for the team it was hard to see matt kansas beat with another team besides roush racing matt kansas however saw that the team was struggling up to this point one sign was the lackluster seasons between 2008 to 2010. yes he did win the daytona 500 in 2009 in auto club right after but those were the only two wins in that three year span what's worse was that 2009 would be the year where matt kenseth would miss out on the chase for the cup the first time in his career that he would miss the chase the second issue was lack of sponsorships it was clear that rouse fenway racing was struggling to have sponsorship for their cars in the early 2010s their nationwide series program was continuing to have non-sponsored cars and events and it was starting to bleed over to their cup series program it would have multiple races where their cards would sport the ford ecoboost sponsor on the car a sponsor that was mostly jack roush trying not to put a blank car on the racetrack one driver that jack was struggling to fill a full sponsorship schedule was none other than matt kenzeth this made kansas realize that it was time to jump ship which he would by the end of the 2012 season matt kenseth would hop on over to joe gibbs racing in 2013 where he would see seven wins in just his first season with his brand new team this would leave jack rouse to replace kenseth with his rising talent ricky stenhouse jr but he too would fall the same path as the other drivers who would replace the original team from 2005. stenhouse in his seven seasons with the team would only grab two victories in that time both coming from the 2017 season it would only be a short-term step in the right direction as stenhouse would only produce mid-tier results throughout his time with the team what's worse was during that time matt kansas was contending for wins on a regular basis with his new team joe gibbs racing this now leads us to the fourth driver from that 2005 team the newest member up to that point carl edwards carl edwards was looking to be the next driver that would score championships for roush racing as he was pulling off impressive victories at both the mile and a half tracks as well as the concrete tracks thus giving him the nickname concrete carl one problem that carl edwards had was that he developed a sort of curse similar to what mark martin had and that was that he could never pull off the championship in 2008 he had an impressive season nabbing nine victories throughout the year unfortunately due some bad luck finishes at both talladega and charlotte during the chase he was not able to knock off jimmy johnson from winning his third championship in a row 2011 would be even a harder blow for edwards that year in the chase edwards would not finish worse than 11th in the final 13 races of the year there was only one issue his closest competitor tony stewart was collecting win after win while edwards could only score top fives this meant that it would come down to a nail biter at homestead the final race of the 2011 season edwards finished second that day while tony stewart would once again win this would result in the tie-in points unfortunately for carl edwards this would mean that the driver with the most wins would receive the title stewart had five while edwards only had one after the 2011 season edwards never came close again to winning the championship while with rouse fenway racing he would collect a win here and there but the top tens were starting to become more and more scarce than ever before carl edwards would see matt kansas dominate with joe gibbs racing and would make the announcement that he would jump ship after the 2014 season since jack rouse was already struggling with sponsorship at this point and now that affleck was leaving after the 2014 season he decided that it was time to shut down another team from his cup series program leading to the team's second team that would be shut down since the 2005 season after edwards leaving this meant that there was only one driver left on the team since that impressive run in 2005 and that was great biffle greg biffle was a talented driver for the team and collected 19 wins in his time there rouse racing was the team that gave biffle his big break in the sport all the way back in 1998 when roush signed him full time in the truck series this made greg biffle a loyalist to jack rouse biffle would be the only driver to stick out with roush fenway racing during their downfall unfortunately he would pay the price for it as he would be out of the picture of running in the playoffs after the 2014 season biffle's performance would drastically slope downhill as his top 10 finishes would drizzle down to only a handful in a season he finished 20th in the points in 2015 and 23rd in 2016. a driver that was finishing in the top 10 in points in the early 2010s could no longer crack the top tens on a regular basis this led to biffle sponsors ending their partnership at the end of the 2006 season and biffle was without a ride we would never see greg before racing the cup series car again thus ending roush racing's dream team altogether in less than 12 years okay that ended pretty sadly however it's not all doom and gloom for rouse fenway racing yet in 2021 it was announced that brad keselowski a series veteran was hopping on over to the team as an owner driver so perhaps there is a chance we could see jack rouse back in victory lane as early as 2022 it's still too early to determine that but many fans are hopeful for now we will sit back and see if rfk racing can return back to the way they were back in 2005 or will they forever be chasing that peak that is now too far of reach [Music]

Channel: Vanillawafer

Views: 122,035

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Id: W8CgWbnV18o

Length: 10min 58sec (658 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 09 2022