A month ago, Ford seemed finished as a make in NASCAR this season, with only one victory in the first 14 Nextel Cup races, and a dozen straight losses.
Talk about a turnaround — at least for Ford’s flagship team, Roush Fenway Racing. It has won two of the last four Cup events and easily could have made it four straight with a little luck.
For Sunday’s Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, the five Roush drivers are at the type of track where their team always has been strong. The 1.5-mile Joliet facility is a classic “intermediate” track.
“For the last month we’ve been strong and a contender, and that’s all you can ask for,” said Roush’s Jamie McMurray, winner of last week’s Pepsi 400 at Daytona. “If it’s your day, then it is, and if it’s not, then there’s not anything you can do about it.”
McMurray is the most significant Roush breakthrough in that he broke a personal 166-race losing streak last week.
Teammate Carl Edwards started the comeback on June 17 with a victory at Michigan International Speedway. It was the first for Roush since senior driver Matt Kenseth won Feb. 25 at Fontana, Calif.
At the two races between Michigan and Daytona, “at Sonoma (Calif.) and Loudon (N.H.), Carl and I had a chance to win,” McMurray said.
NASCAR’s new Car of Tomorrow design, on which Roush had fallen behind earlier in the season, was used at both the Sonoma road course and the tight, 1-mile Loudon oval.
Traditional cars will be used at Chicagoland.
“[This] is the kind of track where I feel very comfortable,” Edwards said. “At Michigan we were awesome, and this is a lot like that.
“I feel like these standard cars and downforce tracks are where we’re best right now, but New Hampshire was pretty awesome and Daytona (a restrictor-plate race with standard cars) was pretty good.”
McMurray led late in the Sonoma race, but ran out of gas just after being passed by Juan Pablo Montoya, who went on to win on fumes. If luck had been reversed, McMurray likely would have won.
Then in New Hampshire, Edwards was dominant before a fluke accident in his pits — his crew dropped his car off the jack before the tires were on — cost him the race.
Last week it all came together, with all five Roush drivers finishing in the top 12. Edwards, who “pushed” McMurray to victory in the draft, wound up fourth. Greg Biffle was sixth, Kenseth eighth and rookie David Ragan 12th.
Could this be the beginning of a streak, like the one in which NASCAR’s best Chevrolet team, Hendrick Motorsports, won 10 of the first 14 races this year?
“I don’t know if it can be the beginning of a streak; I hope it’s the beginning of us being competitive every week,” Edwards said. “To have a streak, you have to be really dominant. Up to this point, the Hendrick cars obviously have been dominant.”
Edwards points out that team owner Jack Roush has told them repeatedly if they can be on a level playing field for the 10-race “Chase” playoffs beginning in September, they can have an “awesome” season.
Hendrick driver Jimmie Johnson understands the Roush challenge.
“I can’t say that surprises me,” said the reigning Nextel Cup champion, who has four victories this season, tied with teammate Jeff Gordon for most on the tour.
“I had been more surprised they had struggled. I’ve been like, ‘What’s going on? Why haven’t they been up front fighting for wins?’ And now it looks like they have themselves going in the right direction.”
Roush admits he got behind early on Car of Tomorrow development and was distracted trying to catch up.
“Those things really had me busy, so we got behind,” Roush said. “We didn’t run as well at some of the mile-and-a-half tracks as we’d like, but we’re back on track. I was maybe complacent about the mile-and-a-half stuff we had in the past, thinking it was good enough … “
Roush also had to dig out of a management mistake he admits making last year. He had poor pairings of crew chiefs with drivers. He broke up Edwards and Bob Osborne, who had won four races together in 2005, and sent Osborne to work for McMurray. But McMurray and Osborne didn’t click, so the switch was double trouble.
This year, Roush put Edwards and Osborne back together and brought in steady-nerved Larry Carter, a veteran of Penske Racing who had worked with Rusty Wallace, for McMurray.
But it has taken this long to get driver-crew chief communication precise again.
“Carl and Bob got put back together this year, [but] you’re not going to have immediate success,” McMurray said. “And then Larry and I got working together.”
The glitches gone, Roush Fords are factors again.
“We’ll be heard from more before the year is over,” Roush said.
USG Sheetrock 400
*3 p.m. Sunday, TNT
The starting lineup
(Car number in parentheses)
%% POS, DRIVER CAR MPH
1. (25) Casey Mears Chev. 182.556
2. (1) Martin Truex Jr. Chev. 182.476
3. (12) Ryan Newman Dodge 182.463
4. (01) Mark Martin Chev. 182.297
5. (8) Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chev. 182.272
6. (5) Kyle Busch Chev. 181.886
7. (07) Clint Bowyer Chev. 181.653
8. (48) Jimmie Johnson Chev. 181.580
9. (45) John Andretti Dodge 181.427
10. (17) Matt Kenseth Ford 181.409
11. (24) Jeff Gordon Chev. 181.330
12. (43) Bobby Labonte Dodge 181.263
13. (11) Denny Hamlin Chev. 181.226
14. (29) Kevin Harvick Chev. 181.147
15. (22) Dave Blaney Toyota 181.038
16. (15) Paul Menard Chev. 180.959
17. (21) Bill Elliott Ford 180.808
18. (70) Johnny Sauter Chev. 180.693
19. (20) Tony Stewart Chev. 180.638
20. (36) Jeremy Mayfield Toyota 180.632
21. (00) D. Reutimann Toyota 180.602
22. (41) Reed Sorenson Dodge 180.536
23. (31) Jeff Burton Chev. 180.463
24. (9) Kasey Kahne Dodge 180.319
25. (99) Carl Edwards Ford 180.313
26. (49) Chad Chaffin Dodge 180.210
27. (13) Joe Nemechek Chev. 180.198
28. (55) Michael Waltrip Toyota 180.174
29. (66) Jeff Green Chev. 180.150
30. (42) Juan Montoya Dodge 179.910
31. (19) Elliott Sadler Dodge 179.874
32. (6) David Ragan Ford 179.850
33. (16) Greg Biffle Ford 179.778
34. (26) Jamie McMurray Ford 179.671
35. (2) Kurt Busch Dodge 179.653
36. (18) J.J. Yeley Chev. 179.563
37. (14) Sterling Marlin Chev. 179.444
38. (40) David Stremme Dodge 179.354
39. (7) Robby Gordon Ford Owner pts
40. (96) Tony Raines Chev. Owner pts
41. (88) Ricky Rudd Ford Owner pts
42. (38) David Gilliland Ford Owner pts
43. (4) Ward Burton Chev. 179.581
%%
Chicagoland Speedway (18-degree bank in all turns, 11-degree front stretch, 5-degree back stretch) Lap length: 1.5 miles
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ehinton@tribune.com
