2000 Truck Series Championship Greg Biffle (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
The Roush organization holds the most wins in the NASCAR CWTS with a total of 50 trophies, yet there will be no Roush drivers in the CWTS in 2010 or possibly any other future year. Lee Montgomery quoted Jack Roush as saying, “I don’t see a presence in the truck series for Roush Fenway in 2010.”
It was recently announced that Colin Braun was going to be moving to Nationwide racing next season. Roush was further quoted by Montgomery as blaming NASCAR for the fact that they required other manufacturers such as Toyota and Dodge to run trucks before moving to Cup, which then caused the price of doing business to go up for him.
It appears, yet again, that Roush is upset that NASCAR continues to evolve rather than securing his position as the dominant team in the sport. He has had a track record of refusing to acknowledge changes in the sport. First, he fought the four-team rule and got the 26 car grand-fathered in until the end of this season, which once more attempted to fight at the start of the 2009 season. Then, there was the infamous denial that the COT would ever become racing reality. Even last Friday, going between the Cup and Nationwide garages at Auto Club Speedway, Roush stated in a quick conversation that there was no way that NASCAR would ever run a bigger tire. When probed about the logic of NASCAR, Goodyear, and race teams using time and resources on testing the tires, Roush scoffed.
Follow up questioning brought up the noticeable, missed opportunity to run the new Ford engine at California, Roush was again dismissive, despite the fact that Auto Club Speedway is known for testing the limits of engines in a way to rival other super speedways. He said that they weren’t going to jeopardize either Greg Biffle’s or Carl Edward’s Chase runs, and Matt Kenseth was optimistic about his return to Fontana, which meant that the risk was to be avoided altogether. Asked about Jamie McMurray or David Ragan having the ability to run the engines to get data for the 2010 effort, Roush did not see that data from McMurray would carry over to the other drivers next year, and they were set to run it at Talladega anyway. Originally, Roush had announced that the engine would debut in the 26 at Daytona in July.
Whether Roush embraces it or not, NASCAR and the CWTS will move on and continue to evolve. In the meantime, Braun is said to be taking his Con-way Freight sponsorship with him to Nationwide, which could have implications for a possible return to the CWTS by Johnny Benson. Rumors had been circulating that Benson could return in 2010 in a truck sponsored by Con-way Freight.
For more information on NASCAR Truck Series racing, check out:
Vote for the most popular driver for the CWTS closes in less than a month
NASCAR CWTS news for a dark week: Power duo, confusion, and a debut
Rick Crawford addresses rumors about James Buescher in the CWTS next year
Vitor Miera to join Piquet in NASCAR truck test next week (Includes video of fire and crash at Indy 500)
F1 dramas could be NASCAR and CWTS gains: What do you think?
Janelle is a native of Southern California who follows a variety of racing formats. She finds the competition between hard-driving veterans and rising stars in the NASCAR Truck Series some of the best in the top tiers of racing. Janelle has been published in print and online, covering topics in both sports and academics. She also serves as the Southern California Motorsports Examiner. Send Janelle an e-mail, and follow her on Twitter. Join the discussion at the NASCAR Truck Series Examiner Facebook page as well.
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