Roush Fenway has come up big in Texas
NASCAR wire service, distributed by The Sports Xchange
Roush Fenway Racing has been a big success on the 1.5-mile track at Texas Motor Speedway.
Will the same hold true for Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in a field of 40 other drivers in Saturday night's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' 500-mile event at Texas Motor Speedway?
In 24 NASCAR Sprint Cup races at "The Great American Speedway," Roush drivers have won nine times, including Biffle winning with a track race record speed of 160.577 mph last spring.
All three Roush Fenway Racing drivers competing in the event under the lights have found Victory Lane at least once. Biffle and longtime teammate Edwards have won two and three times, respectively, in NASCAR's premier series. Stenhouse, who moved into the No. 17 Ford Fusion fulltime this season after winning back-to-back titles in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, won last year's Nationwide Texas spring race.
Additionally, Edwards has two Nationwide victories at Texas, while Biffle has one NASCAR Camping World Truck Series win.
The other four NASCAR Sprint Cup victories at Texas for Roush Fenway belong to Jeff Burton (1997), Mark Martin (1998) and Matt Kenseth, who drove the No. 17 Ford to Victory Lane in 2002 and 2011 before leaving for Joe Gibbs Racing after the 2012 season.
Once the race starts, Roush Fenway Racing drivers should be easy to spot near the top of the leaderboard. They have routinely proven among the fastest on this track. In the past eight years (16 races), Biffle leads all active drivers with 455 fastest laps and 732 laps led (13.7 percent of laps led, also best among active drivers), which is his personal best at any track. In 18 NASCAR Sprint Cup starts, he has seven top fives, 11 top 10s and a pole to go with his two wins.
"We are really excited to go back to Texas as the defending race winner," said Biffle. "It takes a good balanced car to be able to win at Texas. ... The car we are taking just came out of the wind tunnel with really good numbers. I'm ready to get on the track and defend our win."
Edwards has run 4,043 laps in the top 15 in the last 16 races at Texas, which is third most among active drivers, behind only Matt Kenseth (4,174) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (4,106). He has the fourth highest number of fastest laps with 342. Edwards' three victories (in 16 starts) at Texas ties a personal best for the Missouri native; he also has three at Atlanta. In addition, he has five top-five and seven top-10 finishes.
Although Stenhouse has never competed in the premier series at Texas, he has one victory, two top fives and four top 10s in six Nationwide starts there.
"We're hoping for our second win of the season and fourth at Texas Motor Speedway," said Edwards. "It's going to be an awesome 500 laps under the lights of Texas."
"We won their last year in the Nationwide series so hopefully we can get another cowboy hat," said Stenhouse. "We have a test session on Thursday to work on getting our Best Buy Ford dialed in. After last weekend, I am looking to get a top-10 finish."
Through six races this season, Edwards has one win (Phoenix) and three top fives. Biffle has three top 10s, including a pair of sixth-place finishes at Daytona and Auto Club, while Stenhouse's best finish in his first season in the series was a 12th in the season opener at Daytona.
Among all three national series, Roush Fenway Racing boasts a combined total of 18 wins, 74 top fives, 125 top 10s, eight poles and 3,439 laps lead at Texas.
