NASCAR Trucks: Roush continues to use truck series in driver development

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

June 6, 2001

Jack Roush may have two rookies behind the wheels of his trucks that finished one-two in the point standings last year, but his teams are led by Max Jones, an ex-road racer who has over 25 years of racing experience. Jones, who began his driving career in the mid 1970s, took over general manager duties in the Livonia, Michigan, shop that currently houses Roush Racing's two Craftsman Truck Series teams in 1992, overseeing Roush's Trans-Am program. Jones, who turns 47 years old on Wednesday, has been in charge of the truck program since its inception when Roush entered the Truck Series in 1995 with a partial-schedule program with driver Todd Bodine. He spoke about the rule change for the trucks in Texas this weekend and the role that the Truck Series plays in Roush Racing's driver development program.

MAX JONES, General Manager-Roush Racing Craftsman Truck Series Program -

FIRST, THERE WILL BE A RULE CHANGE IN EFFECT FOR THIS WEEKEND'S RACE AT TEXAS. "NASCAR made a rule change to change the truck carburetor from a 850 (cfm) to a 390 (cfm). We're basically mounting a Busch carburetor onto our truck motors this weekend."

WHAT WILL THE IMMEDIATE IMPACT BE? "Well, right now this is a one-race deal. I'm not sure what the change will be to the trucks this weekend, but a couple of things come to mind. First of all, I think they're trying to slow the trucks down, but I'm not sure that it's really going to slow them down. We may only see a decrease of speeds in the range of three to five miles per hour. For all the hoops we're going through, I don't know if it will be worth it, but I don't know that. It might be bigger because of the truck aero package, so we'll have to wait and see when we get them on the track on Thursday. It was to slow them down for Texas, and I think it will make them run more tightly packed like a restrictor plate. This is exactly the same as the Busch cars and we may see the trucks running these next year."

YOU'RE PROBABLY A LITTLE MORE PREPARED FOR THE CHANGE THAN SOME OF THE OTHER TEAMS SINCE YOU HAVE A BUSCH SERIES PROGRAM TO GAUGE OFF OF? "I hope we are. I would like to think that we are. We've been scrambling to get motors refitted and it's already Tuesday afternoon and we're just getting the motors into the shop and the trucks have to leave tonight at 5 o'clock."

WHAT WILL BE THE LOSS IN HORSEPOWER? "It's significant, maybe in the range of 50 to 60 horsepower. I think NASCAR is hoping that this change will level the playing field between the three makes. Ford and Chevrolet have Busch Series programs that they can go to, where Dodge right now doesn't."

BUT, DOES THIS MAKE IT MORE OF AN AERO GAME WHERE DODGE ALREADY HAS AN ADVANTAGE? "I think it is going to make it an aero game because you're going to be flat out at Texas. Biffle and Busch were almost flat out last year. On their qualifying laps, they were flat out. So now, if you back off on horsepower and you back off on speed, you are going to be flat out. Plus, we (Ford) have more downforce than a year ago. Not so much in the front, but we do in the rear. And with the 8-inch blade, you're definitely going to have more. The Dodge, they took an inch off their wing to supposedly take downforce away, but that takes drag away big time, so they need to add that inch back on the Dodges for Texas. NASCAR narrowed their wing up; I'd like to narrow my wing up for that place. You give them an 8-inch blade but it's narrow, where it's effective, so that's not good. We're not going to go blowing by these guys, I can tell you that right now. The Dodge is still going to be good, so I don't know what to expect. I haven't had a lot of time to think about it. Between having this dropped on us and trying to get it done, we've used a lot of man-hours making the switch. I think directionally, this is the right way to go. If we go there next year, there's no need to be going as fast as we are. Directionally, it's the right way to go. We would have liked to have had more warning, but we're going to end up there someday. If we do our homework, this will be an advantage for not only us, but for the 14 team as well since we supply them their engines. The guys still need to drive the race track. It's not that we're going to go out and win the race because of the change, but I think we're not in as much of a disadvantage. We're scrambling to get Crawford the same stuff, too."

AS A GENERAL MANAGER, YOU HAVE A RACING BACKGROUND WHICH IS DIFFERENT FROM A LOT OF TEAMS THAT ARE MORE BUSINESS FOCUSED. DOES THAT ALLOW YOU TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR DRIVERS BETTER? "When I'm winning I think it does, but when I'm losing I think I'm not doing my job very good. I think it does. I know what they're going through and I know what you've got to do out there. I think, I can relate to them. My guys can probably answer that better than I can, but I hope that I'm giving them some feedback and valuable information that they learn from than just a guy who's just a business manager."

YOU HAVE A UNIQUE RELATIONSHIP WITH JACK ROUSH. YOU DROVE FOR HIM BEFORE YOU TOOK THE GENERAL MANAGER POSITION IN MICHIGAN. "I think it's a great relationship. Jack has taught me more about racing and more about running a business than anybody in my life. When he's yelling at me telling me that I did something wrong, he's right. In the beginning, when you're a young race car driver, you don't listen to him as well as I do now and I learned that. He's spot-on every time he's telling me something, so I have a great relationship with him. There are times that I wish he were around more because I feel like I learn a lot from him every time he comes by."

YOUR SHOP IS LOCATED IN MICHIGAN BECAUSE IT MOVED INTO THE SPACE THAT WAS OCCUPIED BY THE ROAD RACING TEAMS. ARE THERE ANY NEGATIVES ASSOCIATED TO THAT WHEN YOU HAVE THE REST OF THE TEAMS LOCATED IN NORTH CAROLINA? "I can't find a hindrance. I find a lot of positives of us being here and not down there, but I don't ever find a hindrance. Maybe there could be a lot more information being shared, but if that's the only hindrance, that's it. As far as being up here. We've got a tightly knit group that keeps to ourselves and races hard. We've got a core group of guys that have been racing for a lot of years and we're able to teach young guys that come into the system, the knowledge that a Rich Reichenbach (Manger of Fabrication Shop), a Danny Binks, a Randy Goss, a Jeff Campy, those kind of guys that have been around Roush for ten to 15 years. I think that if we were down South there would be a chance of losing some of these guys, but they have their roots in pretty deep up here, so that adds a level of stability that you can't get in North Carolina."

YOU'VE CHANGED YOUR IDEOLOGY WHEN IT COMES TO TRUCK DRIVERS. YOU STARTED OUT WITH A GROUP OF VETERANS, BUT THIS YEAR YOU HAVE TWO ROOKIES. "Roush has made the decision that we're going to use this as a farm system for our Busch and Cup programs, so we're out there looking for young talent. In its inception, when we were going truck racing and we were coming out of our road-racing years, it was important for us, Jack felt it was important to have someone that was better grounded than us about stock-car racing and that's why he brought in Joe Ruttman. He brought Ruttman in here to help ground us and help our learning curve for stock-car racing. Once we started winning and doing well, then we got off on the rookies and it's worked real well."

DOES IT MAKE IT TOUGH FOR YOU KNOWING THAT YOU HAVE TO GIVE UP A KURT BUSCH AND A GREG BIFFLE? "It was tough. I'm not going to say that it's not tough, but it's the program and I enjoy the challenge of the next guy coming along. I don't think I would be as challenged, and don't get me wrong I enjoy winning races, if we had Kurt Busch and Greg Biffle dominating every year and winning races every year. I would be like, 'that's what we're supposed to do.' There's a big challenge in grooming young crew guys and race-car drivers. As one of my guys says, 'you even get the rookie PR people.' I enjoy doing that, trying to teach. But I can guarantee you when we win our first race with either Nathan or Chuck, it's going to be a big, big deal than if we won a race with Kurt Busch this year. With that said, it's a lot of work."

YOU SELECT YOUR ROOKIE DRIVERS THROUGH A SELECTION PROCESS DUBBED 'THE GONG SHOW.' HAVE YOU FOUND THAT TO BE A GOOD TOOL FOR JUDGING YOUNG TALENT? "I think it is. I'd love to spend more time because there is so much talent out there that it's hard to find everyone. I think we're missing some people or we're not giving people fair chances because how much time do you have to spend to do it? It's been successful for us to this point. Jack used it in the early years to find other road-racing drivers, so it's worked very well. I'd stick to it. I'm spending more time nowadays watching younger drivers and trying to get a better feel for them so I don't have to rely on a resume and I've seen them actually race before, and then I can invite them to the Gong Show."

WITH THE NEW MOTOR PACKAGE IN THE BUSCH CARS THIS YEAR, IS THE TRUCK SERIES STILL A VALUABLE TRAINING GROUND TO PROGRESS TO THE WINSTON CUP LEVEL? "I'm probably not the guy to answer that, except based on Greg Biffle coming out of the Truck Series. It doesn't seem like the Busch Series has been that hard for him. It's been hard for him, but he's been successful at it. Kurt Busch has done real well in the Cup Series coming out of the Truck Series, so I think it's worked well in those two cases. I think it's more about learning about truck arms and radial tires, it's more about running race tracks that the Winston Cup and the Busch Series run at and all those things trucks do, so I think that's more important than worrying about horsepower and aerodynamics. Yeah, there are things to learn about aerodynamics when you get in a Busch or Cup car over a truck but you can learn those things. If you've been to the race track and you know about truck arms, radial tires and setups, and it's basically the same chassis you run in Busch or Cup, I think you've gotten a lot of things out of the way."

RATE THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR TWO DRIVERS. "I think that when I really sit down and dig into it, I think up until a race or two ago, I felt we were where we should be. Not to say that's where I want to be, in the next four or five races I expect to be a lot farther down the road than where we are. If I go back and look at the level of experience they had, you start at Daytona, we went to a few races and they're learning and we went to some tests in April when we were off. I see progress every time we hit the race track whether it's a practice session or race, qualifying or a test day, I see improvement and I see them learning things about the trucks. I see better communication with their crew chiefs and see them go faster and qualifying better and racing better. I think as long as we see that progress we're doing really well. We need to improve our finishes. There have been times this year that we should have had better finishes, but we got caught up in circumstances that weren't our fault. That's hurt us because we would have a lot better finishing record than we have. There have been times that we've made mistakes that we shouldn't have, which are rookie mistakes on both the crew and driver. I'm happy with where we're at right now, but I need to see a big improvement here soon to get where I feel we need to be."

DID THEY COME IN WITH THE CARDS STACKED AGAINST THEM TRYING TO FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF KURT BUSCH? "I don't know if they're stacked against them, but they came in trying fill big shoes. They came into a program that won 20 races in two years, won rookie-of-the-year honors twice, finished one-two last year and should have won the championship the year before and only lost by eight points, so that's a healthy program to step into and to live up to. Now with all that said, it's an advantage because you've got a good group of guys, you've got good equipment, you've got engines and have a good program. With all that, what better program to step into than that? I'd rather step into that than someone who's working out of their garage in the back with one truck. That's this business. If you're on top, you've got to dig hard."

YOU'VE NEVER HAD TWO ROOKIES STARTING OUT THEIR CAREERS TOGETHER. IS THAT A DISADVANTAGE? "I think that was an advantage for Kurt when he came in. Kurt was able to walk over to Biffle, and he had Matt Chambers who won races with Joe Ruttman, so there was a level of experience there. I don't want to take away how good Kurt is, but that was a better program. Now if I had Kurt here this year, do I think one of these guys would have accelerated faster, yeah, I think it would have helped. But, that wasn't the program I was dealt. I was given two rookies and two rookie crew chiefs. When you evaluate that, I think we're doing pretty good. When you talk about expectations, it's not so much those guys or us, it's what everybody on the outside expects, to come back and win another championship."

GREG BIFFLE HAD HIS STRUGGLES HIS FIRST SEASON. "He did, and believe me, I remember that, but each guy has to been evaluated differently for his own strengths and weaknesses. There were some tough years. We didn't win a race with Greg until the second year. We made mistakes and he made mistakes and we're kind of back to that this year. That's kind of a benchmark that we use. That was the past and you can't compare this quarterback to the next quarterback. You've got to go on with what you have in your hand."

HOW WOULD YOU EVALUATE THE HEALTH OF THE TRUCK SERIES? "It's kind of like the economy. Everyone in the media is working it down and everybody thinks it's gloom and doom, and it's probably not as healthy as it could be. The Truck Series is not gloom and doom, but it could be healthier. They didn't do us any favors when they went to the 12:1 motors. It ran the cost up and it ran people off. There was no need to do it because now we're trying to slow the trucks down. We're changing the aero package and putting carburetors to slow them down and that's costing us even more money. In my opinion, we need to control the costs as much as we can, and if you can control the costs, it's no different in the economy, you've got to cut back your spending and watch what you spend. You need to do that until you get it healthy. As far as the series, it's good racing, it's a great show. If we get the Dodges under control, it will be a better show. I'm sure the fans in the stands don't want to watch a Dodge win every weekend, if they know that's what's going to happen. ESPN has done a great job with the TV package. It seems to me that if it would quit raining we'd have big crowds in the seats. The crowds seem to be as good as they have been in past years and it's rained every weekend. I always hear that the thing isn't healthy, but if you pin it down, I've heard that for the last six years and the crowds are bigger and the TV viewership is higher. Our truck count is down and there are trucks without sponsors, but that's probably a function of the economy. The trucks being down, is directly related to the engine package and I really wish they didn't change that. You see that in the Busch Series, too."

ARE WE MISSING A RIVALRY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE TRUCKS SERIES' EXISTENCE? "This year is different than any year I've seen in the Truck Series because it's just Dodge. If there's going to be a rivalry, it's going to be between two Dodges. That's a little different than I've seen before because nobody is up there mixing it up. There a lot of new guys in the series this year, so there are personalities to be built, and everybody has shuffled a lot and haven't gotten settled yet. Yeah, I haven't see the fight that used to be the Hornaday and Sprague, the Biffle and Sprague, but there are some talented guys up front."

YOU ANNOUNCED THAT YOU HAVE FOUR GUYS SIGNED UP FOR NEXT YEAR. YOU HAVEN'T SAID THAT THERE WILL BE FOUR TEAMS, SO WHAT DO YOU SEE FOR NEXT YEAR? "The four guys are signed but we need four sponsors to run our program. We're out actively looking for sponsorship for every one of those drivers. I'd very like to run all four, but whatever comes about is what we're going to do. Roush Racing is committed to going truck racing. We've got the capacity that we could run a four-truck team, but I don't know if we will and that's where it's at right now. When they said that we have four drivers signed, we got two other guys in the wings that we're looking for sponsors for."

YOU'VE TAKEN AN ACTIVE ROLE WITH THOSE OTHER TWO DRIVERS, TIM WOODS AND JON WOOD. "I've been watching them race. We're hoping to test them a little bit soon. Jon has been racing Winston West and has been doing a tremendous job. He ran at Martinsville in a truck and was very impressive. And. the Wood Brothers and the Roush Racing organization have a relationship there. Tim Woods is a guy that was brought up to me numerous times by different people from different venues, and so I started watching him and going to a couple of races, and he can go. He needs a lot more experience in radials and truck arms, and he's probably not got enough experience right now to go truck racing, but he's learning really fast. He'll be somebody that will be up there some day soon."

YOU'VE RACED AGAINST WILLY T. RIBBS BACK IN YOUR ROAD RACING DAYS. "Willy is a great guy. I've got a lot of great stories, but I don't think they can be printed. This was back when he was racing for Dan Gurney and I was racing for Ford in the IMSA Series. Then later, Willy drove one race for me at the Detroit Grand Prix, but we didn't do as well as Willy or I, or Jack, wanted to; it was a one-off race when I first came over here as a manger. Willy and I are great friends and go way back and had fun together. It's good to see him in the trucks and he's doing a good job. He has a steep learning curve going from road racing and Indy cars to truck racing, but he seems to be doing really well."

Text provided by Greg Shea

Editors Note: To view hundreds of hot photos and racing art, please visit The Racing Image Galleries and The Visions of Speed Art Gallery

.