MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Ford has won only one of the nine NASCAR Cup Series races this season and that result leaves Doug Yates, CEO for Roush Yates Racing, which builds Ford engines for the series, looking for improvement.
“We’ve had some highlights, but we’d definitely love to have more wins,” Yates explained during a Wednesday press call. “Today, we’re sitting here with one win in nine races, which is not good enough for sure. I think intermediate tracks are probably our biggest concern. Vegas was a tough race for us, so we’ll see with Kansas and other tracks coming up here soon.
“We’re not where we want to be. Everybody here is working extremely hard.”
Yates said his group at Roush Yates and the teams will hope to draw from lessons learned in the past to improve performance.
“I think the lesson we learned last year was that we started off OK, the summer was tough, and then we peaked really well in the playoffs and won the championship,” Yates explained. “So we don’t really want to go back to that strategy again, but it seems like, ‘here we go again.’ We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we have a great team here at Roush Yates and great race teams that we are partnered with at Ford Performance.
“We’re going to have to really work hard to try to get more wins, and be ready when it comes the time to win a championship.”
It is the 20th anniversary season for Roush Yates Racing, which won the Cup Series title with Kurt Busch during its initial campaign after the Roush Racing and Robert Yates Racing engine teams were united under a single roof.
“It’s a really special day – special year for being our 20th season since our founders Jack Roush and Robert Yates decided that we were going to join forces and allow me to lead this company,” said Yates on his father Robert’s birthday (April 19). “It’s a really big day… my dad’s been passed on — it’ll be six years in October, but we still celebrate him. His twin brother, Richard, is still a part of our company.
“He’s going to join us tomorrow for a company lunch, fish fry, that we’ll have,” Yates added. “Jack will be here and Richard will be here to celebrate them and give them the chance to speak to all 215 employees to appreciate what they do.”