Clock ticking on catch-up game for Roush Fenway

The beauty of sport is that the status quo never hangs around for very long. The mighty eventually fall. The prepared eventually rise to the top. So it is among the ranks of NASCAR's premier teams.

In 2005, Roush Fenway Racing won 16 races and put all five of its Nextel Cup teams into the Chase. In 2006, the team won six races with two drivers advancing to the Chase. Roughly halfway through 2007, Roush Fenway has three victories and two drivers in the top 12.

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In an organization with such a track record of success, and expectations to match, 2007 has proven to be a less-than-banner year. Among all the teams with drivers in the top 10, Roush Fenway, as a team, easily has the worst average finish position: 17.68 for all five of its drivers.

Compare that to Joe Gibbs Racing's 16.19 average finish for its three drivers, Richard Childress Racing's 15.06 for its three drivers and Hendrick Motorsports' 14.5 for its four.

When you consider the successes that HMS has enjoyed to date, the 3.18 position difference between its average finish and that of Roush Fenway doesn't seem like much, but is in fact astronomical. In my best Dean Vernon Wormer voice: Averaging three-plus positions behind your rival across the board is no way to contend for a championship, son.

I know what you're thinking, comparing the team-wide stats of five-, four- and three-car teams is an apples and oranges thing. It isn't. I look at it like this: With five teams to gather and share data, and to spread out testing responsibilities, all five teams increase their opportunities for success. Assuming all ships rise with the tide, they should all improve to roughly the same degree.

Conversely, the chances of any one team having a lousy finish does not go up or down with the number of teams in that organization. Every race, each team has the same chance at success or failure. It's just like playing the lottery. No matter how many times you take a stab at choosing numbers, each time you try, you have the same one-in-a-billion chance at creating a match.

Roush Fenway's 16.85 average finish in COT races isn't helping its cause either, especially when compared to JGR's 14.49, RCR's 13.04 and HMS's 11.96. (Oddly, the average finish for COT races is better than that of current car races for all four of these teams. I'm not sure why that is.)

Jack Roush's decision to not independently test the COT early on set the team back. His decision in May to launch a COT testing program was clearly the right move. But will it be enough to close the performance gap in time for the five COT Chase races? Or perhaps more importantly, for the three COT races before the Chase, including the all-important Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond, the final cutoff race.

The signs are there that there may be cause for optimism. A victory in Michigan was a step in the right direction. Infineon was a crusher, but the team held its own in the COT race the next week at New Hampshire. The win at Daytona was huge. Just as big though, was the fact that for the first time this year, the entire team finished in the top 15. Chicago was a mixed bag with two cars in the top five and three in the top 15.

Is it a streak?

"I don't know if it can be the beginning of a streak; I hope it's the beginning of us being competitive every week. I think to have a streak, I think you have to be really dominant," said Carl Edwards on Friday. "Up to this point I feel like the Hendrick cars have obviously been dominant, and if we can just match their effort right now and be on a level playing field with them for the Chase, Jack said over and over, 'If we compete during the Chase and make sure those 10 races work, it'll be an awesome season.'"

I dunno. With Jamie McMurray dropping to 15th place after Sunday, and with Greg Biffle fairly mired in 16th place, you can be sure everyone at Roush Fenway can hear the clock ticking. Unless at least one of those two drivers joins Matt Kenseth and Edwards in the Chase and all three "can make those 10 races work," -- short of a driver's championship -- I'm not sure how awesome the season will really be.

Preparation time is over. No matter how many drivers ultimately make it into the Chase, now is the time for Roush Fenway to demonstrate the consistency and the dominance it needs to have a shot at winning it all.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.