Good news for Roush Fenway Racing: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Trevor Bayne have finished an average of 4.5 positions higher than they did in the first four races of the 2016 Cup season.
Bad news for Roush Fenway Racing: The team hasn't won a Cup race since June 22, 2014, at Sonoma _ back when Carl Edwards was still in the mix. He's gone now as the conversation continues to grow about the team's ability to stay competitive in the Cup Series.
It's no secret they are struggling. A lot of variables come into play: They've lost some fine drivers over the years, including Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth and Edwards. They all moved onto other teams. Martin did it later in his career, but Kenseth and Edwards left for Joe Gibbs Racing in their prime _ auspicious moves for them, not so much for RFR.
And with the retirement of Greg Biffle after the 2016 season, the team is down to two drivers. Stenhouse has yet to win a Cup race in 152 starts. Bayne, then driving for the Woods Brothers, won the Daytona 500 in 2011. The dramatic finish included Edwards _ then racing for owner Jack Roush _ pushing him to victory in the last lap. It was a feel-good story about a good guy, but one that has taken on the decided theme of a one-hit wonder. He is now 1 for 134.
"I don't even think about Roush Racing winning a race," FOX Sports NASCAR analyst Larry McReynolds told me during Speedweeks. "I don't think about them being a championship contender. Just be competitive."
Further complicating the narrative is that outside of Roush Fenway Racing, Fords are doing well in the Cup Series. Ford Performance and Roush Yates Engines have been to Victory Lane three times already _ Joey Logano in the Clash at Daytona, Kurt Busch in the Daytona 500 and Brad Keselowski in Atlanta.
If you want the glass to be half full, the team's average finish this season is 16.88, better than the 20.39 average of the entire 2016 season. Stenhouse finished fourth in Phoenix last weekend, the team's best result in the short sample-size.
If you want the glass to be half empty, there are goose eggs in each season's victory column since 2014, and to be clear, Martin, Edwards and Kenseth aren't coming back.
In an effort to shake up things, the team announced a number of organizational changes last November, moving Kevin Kidd, the Cup team manager, to competition director. Tommy Wheeler, who oversaw the production of the team's Cup and Xfinity cars, became the team's operations director. Robbie Reiser, the team's general manager, was reassigned.
"I see a lot of different press releases from the organization giving someone a different title, but it's like they keep moving the same apples around in their basket," McReynolds said. "They don't go out and get any new apples. Fresh apples."
Draw your own comparisons and conclusions. To suggest the team is struggling is not apples and oranges.
