CONCORD, N.C. -- A year ago, Jack Roush stood in front of a roomful of tape recorders, television cameras and microphones in his race shop and basically declared war on Toyota.
One year later, Roush stood in the auditorium of what is now known as Roush Fenway Racing and stated flatly that had Toyota spent its money more wisely last year, it might have fared better in NASCAR's premier division. Roush also apologized to fans of his race team and his own longtime manufacturer, Ford, for what he admitted was an underachieving 2007 season.
Speaking directly to Edsel Ford, the great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford who was in the audience during the final stop on the Sprint Cup media tour hosted by Lowe's Motor Speedway, Roush said: "I hope we get it right this year. We're going to work on it."
Actually, they've been working on it like madmen not only all offseason, but since late May of last season. That was when Roush finally admitted -- first to himself, then to everyone else -- that he and his organization had missed the boat by not bending NASCAR testing rules fully to their advantage in Car of Tomorrow testing.
Asked again Thursday how he could allow it to happen, Roush grimaced and replied: "I've got myself up on the cross here. I said it was my fault. I guess one more spear is not going to hurt."
Director of Ford Racing Dan Davis came to Roush's defense and said Roush wasn't the only one to blame for what happened last season. He said he also misunderstood what the governing body would permit in testing on non-Goodyear tires on tracks that weren't sanctioned by NASCAR. By the time he and Roush realized they had fallen almost hopelessly behind, there was only so much they could do about it for 2007.
"The best thing we could do at that point was to regroup and just go like hell. And, boy, I tell you what: in the last six months my view is that we're really pushing it hard," Davis said. "We're testing everywhere we go and all kinds of vehicles. And I feel like we're all caught up. Sometimes you have to get a little bit behind and maybe get embarrassed a little to get your [stuff] together. I guess I feel like that's where we're at -- and now it's together. So this year, look out."
It's not like Roush Fenway Racing or Ford was totally hapless last season. Their drivers won a total of seven races -- Carl Edwards won three, Matt Kenseth two and Greg Biffle and Jamie McMurray one each -- but Roush said that was "only about half of what we should have won."Kenseth and Edwards both made the Chase, with Kenseth eventually finishing a respectable fourth and Edwards ninth.
But Roush expected more after taking on the Fenway Group as a partner at the beginning of the season, largely in response to Toyota's entry into the Cup Series as a manufacturer. Roush said at the time that he feared Toyota's presence -- a fear that at least for last season proved to be largely unfounded as Toyota teams struggled mightily and didn't win a single race.
That is expected to change this season, with Toyota having added highly successful Joe Gibbs Racing to its lineup of multi-car teams.
"I don't think that the concerns I had about Toyota last year are manifested in what the Gibbs organization is doing," Roush said. "They already had a top-running team. They had a good engineering program. They had a good strategic program as it relates to development of the pit crew. They understood how to build good, fast cars. They just transferred that knowledge from the Chevrolet part over to Toyota.
"I think they'll run as good or better with the Toyota than they would have with the Chevrolet."
That doesn't mean that all of Roush's concerns about Toyota's entry into the Cup Series have disappeared.
"The thing I was concerned about with Toyota was if they came in with the high-handed [attitude] where they break all the moorings and all the molds and all the conventions for budget. The other manufacturers couldn't keep up with it; the sponsors couldn't keep up with it. And by and large, we had the prospect of being overwhelmed by it -- as they tried to overwhelm Formula One and as they overwhelmed the open-wheel racing in this country," Roush said.
"They've not been successful -- because they either haven't invested in the right teams or they don't have the right strength within their organization to know how to spend their money. They're spending a lot of money. But ... certainly they didn't realize the effect of what they were doing in 2007 that they might have. It wound up being basically a miserable failure for them, in terms of the results that they were looking for."
Roush said that he is under no illusions about that continuing to remain the same.
"I'm sure that they will prevail. The weak teams that they've got, the teams that aren't functioning well that they can make stronger they will fix, and ultimately they will be a factor in advancing technology and changing the financial model," Roush said. "The trouble could come in tying the economy in with pressure on the rest of the automobile manufacturers. If NASCAR doesn't control that, if they don't watch it, well then it places in jeopardy upsetting the balance between the manufacturers.
"But right now I expect the Gibbs organization to do a real nice job, and I don't credit Toyota with spending their money in a way that it would have any effect on that. The way they've spent their money and what my concern was will eventually manifest itself in how many other [Toyota] teams are able to pull themselves out of the dirt and put themselves in a situation where they can best-ball either my own organization or [Richard] Childress [Racing] or [Chip] Ganassi [Racing] or Hendrick [Motorsports], by just the amount of money they spend and the way they spend it.
"I'm still fearful that it may come to fruition."
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