CONCORD, North Carolina – Move over Team Penske, Roush Fenway Racing is back.
OK, maybe not entirely, but the cars of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Greg Biffle and Trevor Bayne all qualified inside the top-10 ahead of Sunday’s grueling Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway capitalizing on the speed the organization showcased during the Sprint Showdown and Sprint All-Star race last weekend.
A step in the right direction.
Thursday’s strong qualifying session also marked the first time that Roush Fenway Racing sent three cars into the final round of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series group qualifying since the spring of 2014 at Texas Motor Speedway. Then, a four car foundation with Bayne, Biffle, Carl Edwards and Stenhouse.
Fast forward nearly two years later, RFR seems to be emerging from a dark tunnel where the team has vastly struggled to produce on-track results and ultimately left them winless in a points paying event since Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway in June 2014 at the helm of former driver Edwards.
Stenhouse, the highest qualifying driver in third is seeing his week continue to get better. On Wednesday, longtime sponsor Fastenal renewed its agreement with the two-time XFINITY Series champion in a multiyear renewal for 2017 and beyond.
“Being in the top four in every session there was really big for us,” said Stenhouse. “We’ve been fast at times in qualifying, but never put every round together and stayed that consistent, so I’m really proud of the team for the adjustments that they made throughout the qualifying session there. We just missed it a little bit, but we know where to go work on it to get it better. Now our job is to get it better on Saturday for a long 600 miles and make sure that we’ve got some adjustability in it.
“It’s something that I feel like we’ve struggled with. If I could point out one thing that we’ve struggled with this year it’s making the car better throughout the race. That’s one thing we’ve been talking about all week and will continue to talk about and try to figure out come Saturday’s practices and getting ready for Sunday.”
For the “Biff”, the veteran member of the RFR trio, he earned his first top-10 start of the season and hopes to transform that into his first top-10 finish of the year.
“That last lap I messed up a little bit,” offered Biffle. “I didn’t get to the bottom getting into three. I don’t know what happened, but like the guys said it’s good to be disappointed with sixth. I think we had a chance at the front row for sure. I beat them in one and two, I promise. I think I beat the 78 and the 22 in one and two, but I didn’t turn to the bottom in three and four and gave up some speed down there.”
It’s hard to forget that Biffle who started fourth last Coca-Cola 600 used fuel strategy to finish second, but 12 months later, it’s no longer a one-man band.
“Our cars are way better this year,” said Biffle on the improvements within the organization. “We’re not there yet, which kind of shows, but we’re a lot closer. Now the important thing is 30-lap speed. We’ve got one-lap speed. Now we just need to translate that into 30-lap speed and that’s gonna really be the key for us.”
Bayne has enjoyed the most success of the organization in the last two weeks. A brilliant three-wide pass during the first Sprint Showdown segment surged Bayne into his second All-Star race.
He later backed it up with a superb performance later that night with a seventh place run. Teammate Biffle was intow with eighth.
He’ll start 10th on Sunday.
“We’re in 10th again and like I said a couple of weeks ago we’re kind of disappointed with 10th,” said Bayne. “That’s a refreshing thing to be disappointed with and all of our teammates – third, sixth and 10th – that’s a pretty good day for Roush Fenway Racing. That’s kind of back to where we were in 2011, ’12 when things were looking up for us. We’re glad to be headed the right direction. We just missed the balance a little bit in my car. It has speed in it and it definitely had enough speed to be a pole car today if we just hit the balance right.
“We maybe over-adjusted a little bit and expected too much out of the race track with cool temps. We were just overall too tight and didn’t have enough adjustment in the car. We got it too free in trying, but it’s a really good day for our AdvoCare Ford. We can see the front from there and hopefully we can work our way to it.”
True, qualifying up front is one thing, but staying near the top during a daunting 600 miles on Sunday night is something completely different.
The good news is that Roush Fenway Racing seems to be returning to their old form on a more consistent basis and given their recent surge in not only qualifying, but on-track performance too, a win in NASCAR’s longest race would put an exclamation point that Roush Fenway is back and here to stay.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
