Can Roush Fenway Racing go on without Jack Roush?

Jack Roush is debating retirement after a long career in auto racing

Yes you read the question correctly, can Roush Fenway Racing go on without Jack Roush?

In my mind they will be able to do so.  I read an article this morning where Jack Roush see's retirement in his near future.  I mean think people, Jack is getting up in age (74 to exact) and he's not going to  be around forever.  I believe last season, Roush started planning for his eventual retirement by putting management in place that could run the team better in case of this situation.

Roush started his organization back in 1988 in NASCAR with Hall of Fame driver Mark Martin in a newly formed race team.  It took them nearly two years to win, but since Roush has had drivers combine for 135 victories in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.  Late last year, the organization announced that it was cutting back to a two-car team to try and fix some of the problems within the organization. 

"I expected to have better years than  2016 and 2015," Roush told the Arizona Republic in advance to this weekend's Camping World 500.  "Had I realized I had these years in front of, I might have decided to side-step and retire.

"I'm 74.  I can't do what I'm doing today for another 10 years.  My window is, the longest I've been able to predict what I was going to do in life, has been five years.  I'm probably down to a three-year window.  I'm looking at how I can be useful."

Jack Roush would be one of the few
car owners in the garage to know what
he is looking for examining spark plugs

I look at many of the people that Roush has hired on in the last few years to help bring the company back up to par and it seems like as of late there is more speed in the two cars at the track, they still need a little more to get to victory lane.  I think Ford has realized that and they're working hard to help the organization get back to where it needs to go.

In essence I also feel Ford is going to help keep them going when Jack Roush steps away.  Whether it be to find someone to help run the everyday business of the shop or to take it over and they might already have someone in mind.  Rumors began to float around in 2015 that Doug Yates was ready to buy Jack Roush's portion of the company (whether it was true or not, I do not know), so he's a possible candidate for the job.

There is a piece of me that thinks when the sport evolved to fuel injection from carburation it also took a piece of Jack Roush with it.  Jack Roush was one of the few car owners you seen that pulled a spark plug out of one of these V8 engines and examined everyone of them to see if they were running rich or lean.  He had his hands on his cars in some way and now I think it has been slowly peeled away.

Within the last year and a half many changes to Roush Fenway Racing's structure changed to help boost their technical settings to go faster on the track.  It started when Kevin Kidd was hired a couple of years ago and he is now the general manager of the organization.  At the end of last year, several other moves were made to help bring the technology along to make the cars faster, but so far the best finish the teams have had is Trevor Bayne's 10th at the Daytona 500.

"We've restructured our management group to be able to operate with greater independence from me," said Jack Roush, who also owns a huge engineering company in Michigan.  "And without as much of the inspiration for what we do as, maybe, I've been in the past.

"The race team, with the partnership we've got with John Henry and the Fenway Sports Group, has got plenty of depth.  As long as....we're able to to make a viable business out of it.  I'm sure the people that will follow me and will manage the affairs after my passing, they will look favorably on the involvement."

I noticed a different Jack Roush back in January when Mark Martin was inducted into the Hall of Fame.  Just the way Jack was during the ceremony caught me off guard.  There is a lot of questions about whether or not this team could go on without the man that started it, I believe Ford Performance will help find a way to keep them going.  During the 2002 season, when Roush had his first plain crash the team came together harder than ever before to make sure that they won races and competed for Jack.  I believe that would be the same case when Jack takes his step into retirement.

The people that have been with the organization would want to carry his name on in good faith and make sure they go forward in the right manner.