Concord, N.C. — Roush Racing has won the last two NASCAR Cup Series championships with Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch doing the honors in 2003 and 2004, respectively. Those two drivers are back in the Roush stable, along with teammates Mark Martin, who will be competing in his final year for the NEXTEL Cup, Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards. In addition, veteran Ricky Craven and rookie Todd Kluever will be making a run for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship.

All of the Roush drivers, along with owner Jack Roush, spoke to the media on Thursday as part of the Lowe's Motor Speedway week-long tour.

JACK ROUSH, CAR OWNER - ROUSH RACING
"I think 2005 is gonna be a great year, no matter what. I won't predict a three-peat. I thought that we would never win our first championship and then we got one. Matt and Robbie [Reiser, crew chief] brought us our first and then Jimmy [Fennig, crew chief] and Kurt brought the second one. That's wetted Robbie and Matt's appetite to jump back in there and of course; Mark has an interest in that too since he's my partner in that team. Of course, Jimmy and Kurt don't want to be denied. Greg Biffle is a little behind on his program and wants to get caught up (laughter). And Carl Edwards, I never know what he's gonna come up with. He always surprises me, but he's clearly ready to go based on the start he made last year. And with Mark we've got the Salute to You campaign going for the last year. I wouldn't predict the outcome of a horse race or an automobile race, but I will predict that Mark Martin will not go quietly. I think that speaks volumes.

"When I look at the garage area and look at the lineups, the people that are running the cars, I'm talking about the crew chiefs that are making the decisions and the drivers that are driving them, I wouldn't trade anybody in the Roush Racing organization for anybody else that's out there. I hope from the way we conduct ourselves and the results this year that all of you will agree with me."

MARK MARTIN - NO. 6 VIAGRA TAURUS
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE SALUTE TO YOU TOUR?
"I guess Kevin Woods and Jamie Rodway and several people here at Roush Marketing helped us put this program together and found something that really fit me and my personality. I think most of you know me and know my philosophies on things and how I view things. I'm just really grateful for this opportunity that I've had all these years to do the things that I've done. I reflect back more now than ever before facing the final go at this Cup thing and realize that I was just a little kid from Arkansas wanting to go race the big time, so it's real important to me, I wouldn't say more than anything else because contending for that championship is probably number one on the agenda, but right behind that is the opportunity to thank the fans, give the respect to the media that they deserve and that we've not always had time to do throughout the years, and my sponsors and the people in this sport that really made the memories. I'm sure 20 years from now I'll say, 'Yeah, that 2005 was the good old days,' but right now I look back at all the years and a lot of the special memories that I have date back 10-15-20 years and they're real dear to me. I look forward to 2005. I realize it's gonna be the most challenging year of my career. I've made that commitment to go at it with all the ferocity that I have and my family has made the same commitment. They realize that they're gonna see less of me this year than ever before, but my team and all the people in this sport are gonna get every ounce that I have and I look forward to it."

KURT BUSCH - NO. 97 IRWIN/SHARPIE TAURUS
WILL YOU APPROACH THIS SEASON DIFFERENTLY?
"We had a great season. It was fun to challenge ourselves to be at our best during those final 10 races and for us to go out and repeat is gonna be a chore, but that's what our expectations are. We're gonna have some fun while we do it and, of course, there are gonna be the demands of being a champion and going and doing all the different extra-curricular activities with the sponsors, with the media, with some of our promotional events, but yet I can't wait to go to the race track next week at California and Las Vegas to get some testing in and get back to the race car—to get back to what I'm very familiar with and comfortable with. But the media side has been great so far and the way that our sponsors have embraced this championship, nothing short of another championship would meet our expectations because that's the goal for this next year."

HAS YOUR WARDROBE BUDGET GONE UP?
(Busch was wearing a sport coat and dress shirt) "Kenseth has been given me slack, so I might have to help him out a little bit. Do you think we're the same size?"

MATT KENSETH - NO. 17 DEWALT TAURUS
"I'm glad I don't have to dress like that anymore (laughter)."

WHAT WILL YOU DO DIFFERENTLY IN 2005 TO GET BACK IN THE CHASE?
"I wasn't saying that Kurt looks bad, I'm just glad I don't have to dress like that. I'm more comfortable dressing like this (jeans and a golf shirt). But 2004 was a pretty decent year for us. I think for everybody at Roush Racing it was a good year. Greg won a few races. Mark challenged for a championship again and made The Chase and got to victory lane and Kurt winning the championship, so I think it was a good year for everybody. We always look forward to better things and after winning the championship in 2003 anything less than that is definitely a letdown, so it was a letdown to finish the year on kind of a down note, but, yet, we did have a good year. We were able to win some races and had a good time in the Busch Series and the IROC thing was good, so we're just looking forward to trying to improve on everything we did last year. It's been a great year for our building across the street. That building has won two championships in a row and, hopefully, they can keep that up and give us some good cars this year and we can do a better job with them."

GREG BIFFLE - NO. 16 NATIONAL GUARD/SUBWAY TAURUS
HOW DO YOU CARRY THE POSITIVES FROM LAST SEASON AND BUILD ON THOSE THIS YEAR?
"I think it's real easy for us to carry the positives from last year. The second half of the season was really good for our team. Doug [Richert, crew chief] and I really feel like we've got our cars where we need to be right now and I feel better, obviously, the best I've ever felt about starting a NEXTEL Cup season right now. We feel like we're ready. We feel like it's gonna be a continuation to the end of last year the way we ran at Kansas and Michigan and Miami. So just improve on some race tracks that I need to improve on that are in the NEXTEL Cup chase the last 10 and then making the chase, I think, is gonna be the key. So I feel like we're really ready to go. I feel confident that we're gonna be challenging for a win right out of the gate—I'm hoping the first five races of the season are some good race tracks for us. You never know what's gonna happen at Daytona, but we might stand a chance of being there again this next year. Maybe I won't make a mistake toward the end of the race and have a chance at it."

CARL EDWARDS - NO. 99 OFFICE DEPOT TAURUS
WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THE BUSCH AND CUP SERIES?
"I'm just so excited to get to do this with the opportunity that Jack and all of our sponsors have given me. I mean, we're gonna run in the Daytona 500, which is pretty crazy to me. We've got Office Depot, Scott's, World Financial Group and AAA and they've all teamed up to go out and help us try to do the best we can in that Cup car this year. We've got Bob Osborne as a crew chief. I'm really excited about that and then also we're gonna run the Charter car full-time. From what Greg said, it's a pretty demanding schedule, but I'm just really excited about it. I'm pretty pumped, the more racing the better. Jack says they're gonna try real hard to burn me out a little bit this season, but I don't know if it's possible. We'll see. We're gonna do our best and I'm just pumped. I think anything less than a championship in the Busch Series will be a disappointment for us. I know it's a high expectation considering my experience in the Busch Series and we'd like to be in that top 10 chase, obviously, in the Cup car but those are very lofty goals. I think if we do our work and lean on my teammates, who have obviously had a lot of success, we can do it."

TODD KLUEVER - NO. 50 SHELL ROTELLA T F-150
WHAT WILL IT BE LIKE COMPETING WITH RICKY AND HAVING ALL THE EXPERIENCED DRIVERS AT ROUSH?
"This is obviously such a big opportunity for me. First off, I get to work with somebody like Ricky, who has been successful in every form of NASCAR racing. He's won NEXTEL Cup races and been successful in the Busch Series and I'm sure he'll be successful in the Truck Series. Above and beyond what he can do to help me on the race track and what we can do as teammates together, he's been a good personal friend as far as my personal life and getting moved down here, and just offering his help in anything he could right away. I'm excited to get to race with him. I think we work well together as teammates. I know when we started our first test was Talladega and he spent a lot of time helping me get comfortable with the truck, moving his truck around my truck in the draft—just giving me experience with what my truck was gonna do. At the same time, I was helping him because he has the experience and he knows what his truck is gonna need to do as far as drafting and sucking up when we go to Daytona. So even though he was helping me, I was still helping him and I know that everything I can do to help him—even though I don't have the experience yet—if he changes something on his truck to make it better for when we go to Daytona for the race, it's gonna get done to my truck, too. So by then hopefully I'll have a little more experience and I'll be able to use a little bit more of what he's putting into the truck. I think I'll be able to help him a little bit, but, more importantly, he'll be able to help me a whole lot. That's very exciting for me. And obviously I have all the rest of these guys here to my right, which are gonna be phenomenal. I don't need to say a whole lot about each and every one of them. They're all pretty much the cream of the crop in NASCAR, so I hope to use a little bit from every one of them, if they'll let me. When I came into this deal I was very unsure of how it was all gonna play out, but every one of these guys have been absolutely excellent in welcoming me here and offering whatever they can do to help me. I was actually just talking with Carl a little bit in the back about watching a tape of the Daytona race from last year that he won, so I can get some pointers and we're gonna work on that. I have such a wealth of knowledge here that I get to use and it's just a really exciting position for me."

RICKY CRAVEN - NO. 99 SUPER CHIPS F-150
IS IT REALISTIC TO WIN A TRUCK TITLE IN YOUR FIRST YEAR AND WHAT ABOUT THE TRUCK SERIES IN GENERAL?
"First of all, we'll win a truck championship if we earn it. From my seat a big part of earning that will be capitalizing on the opportunity, which I want to thank Jack for giving me, and taking advantage of the resource that Roush Racing has. I think when I first met with Jack I thought a program that can win two NEXTEL Cup championships with two separate teams and two different drivers speaks volumes, and I need to capitalize on that. It's a great opportunity. I'm looking forward to it. To be clear, I'm gonna miss the NEXTEL Cup side of things. I look at these drivers and they've become friends of mine. I've raced the last decade with Mark Martin, who I have great respect and admiration for. Matt Kenseth has become a good friend, Kurt Busch and Greg Biffle, and then I look at the Truck Series and I say that this is a series that, with the exception of Carl Edwards, rewards experience—I believe. You look at the results of last year and you have three drivers in their mid to late forties battling for the championship, so I've studied the series and I've evaluated the opportunity and I'm intent on capitalizing on it. We'll use everything we have to make the Ford 99 Super Chips truck a contender throughout the season. Beyond that, the only interruption I have is my wife is expecting our third child sometime today (laughter). I'm gonna be heading north for my snowmobile ride in a few hours. I saw most of you the other night and I told you that if you had the opportunity to come to the snowmobile ride, don't. But that was just because it was 30-below-zero. It's warming up. It's gonna be in the mid-twenties, so I'd like to invite you to come to the snowmobile ride. When we come back from that, we're gonna be focused on one thing and that's Daytona. And when we leave Daytona we're gonna be focused on California and when we leave California it will be Atlanta. I've already watched the first three races. I've watched the Daytona race four times. I've watched the California race twice and the Atlanta race once and I've called Carl. It seems sort of unusual that at my age, which isn't old, but I'm 38 and to use Carl as a resource seems a little strange, but the fact is he has always impressed me. From a driver's standpoint, he's the real deal. He'll tell you, I've surprised him a few times in calling him. I'll just call him out of the blue. I'll say, 'Carl, I'm interested in something here. Help me out.' And he's been a good resource, so I'm gonna take advantage of that from top to bottom. In closing I just want to say to Mark that I'm pulling for you. If anybody deserves a championship in this sport, Mark Martin does and the truth of the matter is Mark deserves four or five or six. He's exceptional. He's a good guy, but he's an exceptional race car driver and only race car drivers truly know that. It would be a shame if he doesn't win his championship in 2005. Having said that, he's a champion."

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR FORMULA FOR SUCCESS AND THE MERGING OF YOUR OPERATION OVER THE YEARS?
"I would call it more of a morphing than a merging at least as far as I'm concerned. We've kind of morphed our way into this five-team Cup configuration with a handful of Busch cars and trucks in various proportions depending on the year—nine or 10 programs we've had for at least five or six years. Very early on I figured I didn't know enough about my racing as a drag racer and I was racing three or four drag race cars in my racing team in super stock and pro stock when most people were organized for one car. I was learning three times as much with my three cars as anybody else was with one because I was paying attention. Of course then we road raced. Starting in '81 we ran multiple GTX cars initially and then ultimately multiple GTO and GTS cars. One year we took five cars to the final race at St. Petersburg. We actually took six cars on a truck. To win the manufacturer's title for Ford, we needed to finish one through five. We had a turbo-charged engine that took me half a year to straighten out for the Mercur, what it took to keep that thing alive for the entire distance of a race, and finished one through five. I left the sixth car on the truck. I decided I didn't need six cars. I only needed to finish one through four to do the deal and I was pretty confident. Anyway, by that time we had perfected the multiplicity of cars and a selection process or a matter of indoctrinating—or maybe I should say listening to the drivers with what they needed and figured out how to reflect that in the hardware and the people that worked on the cars. In those days, we had more young drivers than we did senior guys like Ricky and Mark, but as we started Winston Cup I felt naked really with just one car. With Mark's car we started in Liberty [N.C.] and, of course, I couldn't wait to get going on a second car. We didn't have the first car right and I wanted to do a second car to help and then I really screwed that up and I had to go back and do a third car, which wound up being the Jeff Burton car just to see if we had our technology organized being cloistered in Liberty. We went down to the Charlotte area here, actually in Mooresville, and bought some cars. Whatever was in the ground water down here, instead of doing all of our own stuff, so we figured out that a blend of what you do yourself and a blend of the technologies coming from Ford, and a blend of the things that were in the contemporary knowledge of the people in the Charlotte area was best. So then we moved our whole operation to Charlotte, morphed into that, and the next thing you know we've got five cars for a while. We were probably a little early with that. Sponsors came on board. We had drivers we thought could, but we didn't know that they could. I was probably weak in getting my teams together. It takes three things to make these programs work. It takes a driver who can. It takes technology that can. And it takes a team that will. That's more than just can. They have to have the can and the will, and it takes as long to get a team organized as it does to get a driver acclimated to a given series. The biggest failing that I've had for Greg is that I tried to bring my championship Busch team and have them advance with Greg, and Greg was more ready than my team was in the first year. Of course that frustrated all of us, but to have the team ready to go and to have the driver who can and to have the technology that has the capability is important. Like I said, we kind of morphed our way into five Cup teams and something less than five Busch teams and something less than five Truck teams that are all feeding off one another, and either developing people or giving a chance to prove out technologies and do testing that's meaningful. Five is a good number for the Cup program and five is good number for a combination Busch and Truck. I think it's pretty much optimum for us right now. I really look forward to this year."

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED
THOUGHTS ON DEFENDING THE TITLE.
"I'm just as young and eager as ever, ready to go with what this championship is all about. Whether it requires different things or whether I'm able to enjoy things differently and have a special invite to go and do things. It's been fun already and this off-season has been somewhat slow. I made arrangements to go on vacation early in December, which is something I'll never do again—just with the way the whole season led right up to Miami, and then we rushed off to New York. It just wasn't time to relax in December yet, and now we've already gotten into testing. We're ready to go next week to California and Las Vegas. Blending in appearances in market, I think, is a key objective for me. I know I've got a great support staff at the Roush Marketing Group to help me do such things. When we go to different race venues or different tests, we're definitely gonna hit the appearances the right way and try to impact the fans in a better direction with allowing them to understand more about me as well as our sponsors."

MARK MARTIN CONTINUED
HOW IMPORTANT ARE THESE TESTS IN CALIFORNIA AND LAS VEGAS?
"The tests in Vegas and California, every team will be at, so how important are they? In my opinion, they are or they aren't. I mean, it would be terrible if one of us missed those tests, but if nobody ran them, then it wouldn't be important because everybody has the same thing to adapt to and all the teams are geared up for adapting to change. That's why they run good consistently year in and year out whatever the rules are. I don't view these tests coming up as being anymore important than any other time because of the rules, they're just important because every team is going. That's what really makes it important. You can't afford to let someone get the jump on you because in this business that's what everybody is trying to do in the first place. We're gonna go out there. I'm real excited about the rules. Greg will tell you. He's probably driven more with them than I have, but I fixed my car in Atlanta in November in the test and it's a no brainer for me. I wished they would have done this in '99 when I started begging them to do it."

GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED
"Just to echo what Mark said, if no teams went and tested—if the track wasn't ready yet and nobody could go test—we'd all be on a level playing field. But since everybody is going it forces us to go. We want to go, so that's gonna be important. I've tire tested for Goodyear at Las Vegas at the end of last year with the short spoiler already and selected the tire that's gonna be run there, so I've got just a little bit of experience. But, like Mark said, he ran at Atlanta with the short spoiler and it's definitely gonna be different. I think the biggest change we're gonna see is the difference between a single car running by itself versus all running together. It's kind of funny to say that you almost want to not necessarily draft, but run in a group at one of these tests. I'd be more eager to see what the car reacts like, but that doesn't ever really happen at these kind of tests. We're by ourselves. You may be around another car, but not in a situation where there are six cars in front of you and four behind you, so that's where the short spoiler is gonna be real effective is how the car takes the air off the other car beside you. It may be less effective because there's not as much on it. It may be more effective because the little bit you had is now gone. I don't know how it's gonna react, but I'm real curious to find out once we get in a race type situation."

MATT KENSETH CONTINUED
"I think it's gonna be an important test. It's gonna be more important than Daytona was. The reason it looks so important to all the teams isn't because all the teams are gonna go, it's because we're forced to go. They gave us two tests for the price of one. We get a free test at California if we test at Vegas and let them inspect our car, so, really, we're forced to go to the west coast for an extra week this year. And Daytona we're really forced to test too because it's a mandatory test. They say we tested whether we go or not. It's counted against us, so we don't really have that choice to go test different tracks. So is it important? Yeah, it's important. It's the first time we get to test our downforce cars. Is it important as it looks because every team is there? Probably not. It's because we get two tests for the price of one. It's definitely gonna be different with the small spoilers, but it's gonna be the same difference for everybody. It's like Mark said, whatever teams are gonna adapt the quickest and whichever teams adapt the quickest whenever there are rule changes, because there are rule changes every year, is gonna be the tough team. So I don't really see anything big coming out of those tests. I think the same teams are gonna run good and the teams that struggle are still probably gonna struggle."

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED
"These guys are exactly right on how if you go to the test, you can gain the information you're going to gain. If everybody goes it seems to be a bit more important, but the reason to go is because it is a two-for-one. To jump into the driver aspect of it, it's going to be fun. We're gonna have a shorter spoiler. We're gonna have looser race cars. I'm the guilty candidate that spun out twice last year all on my own because I got aero loose with a guy right behind me. So with that experience level I hope that I've shown NASCAR that these cars are driving loose and they're gonna get what they want with the shorter rear spoiler and all the teams are gonna have to adapt to that. That's why there is such a demand to go to California and Vegas because of how different, I believe, the cars are gonna drive—as well as the qualifying format. With impounding cars we have to qualify the same setup that we're going to race, so there's gonna be that choice at some tracks. Do you go for the race setup or do you go for the qualifying setup for track position? Those are the unique balances that we're gonna test out this next week."

MARK MARTIN CONTINUED
WILL THIS BE THE LAST YEAR YOU EVER DRIVE A CUP CAR?
"Concerning NEXTEL Cup competition, I can't close the door on that because I don't want to come back and say, 'I know I said that, but something has changed.' There is no plan to run NEXTEL Cup races. We're not even pursuing that possibility at this point and there's a good reason for that. It's real competitive and really difficult to do a one-off race and have a chance to win. To believe that I could get in a part-time car and beat the [No.] 6 car is not very realistic in my opinion, and I don't want to do it on a limited level like that. I want to definitely have as good a chance as anybody if I do race. There's a possibility, but I couldn't tell you what that might be. The thing that we're looking at the most is the Truck Series. That's something I have great interest in. We don't currently have a program in place with a sponsorship and everything. When we do we'll let you know, or if we do. And if I don't do that, I'm gonna be in the driver's seat in short track cars probably all across the country signing autographs and having fun. The thing I'm gonna do in 2006 is I'm gonna make the decision based on what's gonna be fun and not necessarily what's best for business or anything else. I don't have a lot of experience in having fun, so I'm gonna start working on that in 2006."