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2018 Team Reviews: Roush Fenway Racing

Neither Roush Fenway car made the playoffs in 2018. (Photo by Sarah Crabill/Getty Images)
Neither Roush Fenway car made the playoffs in 2018. (Photo by Sarah Crabill/Getty Images)

With the 2018 season getting further and further in the rearview, it’s time to take a look back and the highs and lows of each Cup Series team in 2018. Next up, Roush Fenway Racing.

Ricky Stenhouse

Points position: 18th

Top 10s: 5

Top 5s: 3

Season highlight: Stenhouse’s best finish of the regular season came at Bristol in the spring when he started and finished fourth. His best finish overall came in the fall Talladega race when he was fifth. He had a nice run in the spring when he finished in the top 15 for five-straight races and was 15th in the points 14 races into the season.

Season lowlight: Stenhouse missed out on the playoffs after winning at Talladega and Daytona to make it into the postseason in 2017. He entered the season with Daytona and Talladega being two of the tracks where he had a great chance to win at. He didn’t win at either of them.

The lack of the win was painful because Stenhouse wasn’t good enough via points to get into the playoffs. He was 26th at Kentucky, 30th at New Hampshire and then 22nd at Pocono over a three-race stretch in July. While he didn’t fall in the points standings because of those races, he lost ground to the drivers ahead of him.

Trevor Bayne

Points position: 31st

Top 10s: 0

Season highlight: It was not a good year for Bayne. His best finish was an 11th at Bristol in the summer and he was 12th at Texas in the spring.

Season lowlight: Here’s how it was not a good year for Bayne. He was 29th in the points standings through the first 11 races of the year. He drove in all 11 of those races before he was pulled from the No. 6 car so Matt Kenseth could split the driving duties with him the rest of the season. Bayne drove in 10 more races over the rest of the season and ended up 31st in the points. Yes, he missed 15 races and was only two spots worse than where he was in the spring. Egads.

Bayne doesn’t have a ride for 2019. Will we see him back in NASCAR in the near future?

Matt Kenseth

Points position: 32nd

Top 10s: 2

Season highlight: The final two races of Kenseth’s career were top-10 finishes. He was seventh at Phoenix — the site of the last win of his career — and then finished sixth at Homestead a year after his big (for him) sendoff.

Season lowlight: Kenseth’s first race back at Roush wasn’t exactly a success. He was off the pace all weekend at Kansas and finished 36th. He was 17th and 13th in his next two races and ended up with nine top-20 finishes in his 15 starts with the team.

Kenseth’s career looks to be over. It’s surely a Hall of Fame one and his induction into the NASCAR Hall will be a matter of when, not if.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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