Motorsports

When your enemy is lurking next door

Edwards vs. Kenseth is the latest team rivalry.

By BRANT JAMES, Times Staff Writer
Published October 27, 2007

Carl Edwards, driver of the #99 Office Depot Ford, speaks to media with Roush Racing teammate Matt Kenseth, driver of the #17 DeWalt Ford.
	[Getty Images]

HAMPTON, Ga. - Robbie Reiser knew he and longtime partner and friend Matt Kenseth were not performing to their standards. But, he felt, no one knew better than they how to recapture the level of performance that led in 2003 to Roush Racing's first championship at NASCAR's highest level.

But in a meeting in 2005, team president Geoff Smith suggested a partnership that had started in 1997 - when Kenseth was an aspiring driver and Reiser a would-be Busch Series owner - should be disbanded.

"Sometimes you need someone to say something like that to put a little fire under your butt," admitted Reiser, the crew chief who helped Kenseth rebound and finish second in points last year. "You have to take it as a motivational tool."

Such is the brutal, corporate mentality inside a race team that is run much like the business empire Jack Roush has built since leaving Ford Motor Company decades ago. It is frank, competitive and self-reliant.

And at times, dysfunctional.

"There's no sugar-coating with Jack," Smith said. "It can be difficult for some people to be kind of laid open in front of everybody, but at the same time it's not done with malice and it's done with a view of making things better. It works really, really well."

That approach can produce periods like the team enjoyed from 2003-2005, when Roush won consecutive Nextel Cup championships with Kenseth and Kurt Busch, 39 races and once placed all five drivers in the Chase.

But it can also create a volatile atmosphere where egos bruise and grudges fester. Such was the case last week at Martinsville Speedway, when Carl Edwards raised a fist to Kenseth after accosting him during a post-race television interview.

They hadn't settled this over the past several months, as the team expects. Still, this was ultimately about racing's "overtly aggressive, competitive, potentially combative circumstance," Roush said. His mantra has always been that his drivers are allowed to compete as fiercely against each other as anyone else as long as they don't "wad their cars up in a ball" until they cross the finish line. They are to settle their disputes the same way.

"We're not going to do an artificial handshake so that the media and fans are fooled into thinking whatever the underlying thing is over with," Smith said. That wouldn't be easy anyway considering Edwards, admittedly, is not friends with Kenseth, Biffle or Jamie McMurray.

Though teammates have squabbled and sometimes followed through with punches for as long as there has been racing, other teams have been more proactive in keeping small issues from fomenting. As Kenseth and Roush languish in the standings, ultra-competitive teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson are vying for the championship.

Both acknowledge the stresses of competing have at times tested their friendship, but any deeper issues have been hugged away by the long-reaching arms of well-respected owner Rick Hendrick.

"A race team should be a family. We're a family, and we keep those things within the family," said Gordon's crew chief, Steve Letarte.

Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin feuded openly after Stewart bumped his teammate off the lead in the Pepsi 400 in July, but team owner Joe Gibbs quashed the situation with a face-to-face chalkboard session underscoring team goals.

With Roush unwilling to inject himself either into personal matters or on-track decorum, drivers inherit the task of maintaining fragile egos and uneasy peace. That includes deciding whether a driver such as Edwards, who is in the Chase, is allowed to pass a teammate who isn't, such as Biffle, for bonus points. Biffle made such a concession this season at Loudon, N.H.

"I prefer that, because it's between us," Biffle said. "I would be very vocal if I was getting ordered to get out of the way. That's not right. ... Jack's not going to do that. He wants us to do what we think is right and work together."

Roush Fenway's odd personality mix and the departure of diplomatic veteran Jeff Burton in 2004 have made self-policing difficult. Kenseth, though bright and wry, would be the quietest of unwilling leaders, and Biffle can be brooding. McMurray's quirky personality is atypical of a leader, and rookie David Ragan doesn't have the resume.

Edwards expressed a desire to be that person this week, but his calls for reconciliation off the track and aggressive driving on it bolster claims such as Stewart made last year that Edwards caters his message for his audience. Kenseth, who hasn't returned Edwards' calls, said he's not sure a leader is needed because "we're all professionals."

This might be harder for his drivers to work through than Roush had hoped.

[Last modified October 26, 2007, 21:07:47]