RFK Racing

Chuck Hossfeld drove the final race of 2000 at California Speedway in the No. 49 as a third Roush entry in preparation to take over the No. 50 from Greg Biffle in the 2001 season. He finished 31st after losing an engine during the event.

The No. 33 truck began running in 2005 as a research and development entry for Ford. Bobby East attempted three races in the truck but failed to qualify for two of them. He crashed out of his only start at Phoenix, finishing 30th. Mark Martin ran the Ford 200, where he started 14th and finished 8th with sponsorship from Stonebridge Life Insurance.

Joey Clanton began the 2008 season driving the No. 09 full-time in 2008 with Zaxby's sponsoring, but after the season-opening race, he was released. Travis Kvapil returned to Roush and shared this ride with Bobby East and John Wes Townley for the rest of the season. Jamie McMurray piloted the truck at the fall Martinsville race. Kvapil managed two top-five finishes at Dover and New Hampshire during the season. Roush shut down the No. 09 team after the 2008 season.

Travis Kvapil in 2007.

The truck switched to No. 6 and was shared by Nextel Cup veteran Mark Martin and rookie David Ragan. The No. 6 truck's new sponsor was Scotts, and the truck, piloted by Martin, won the first two races of the 2006 season. Martin then decided to race more races than he originally intended, and he only skipped races without a corresponding Nextel Cup event. Auggie Vidovich II drove for the Mansfield race after Ragan crashed the truck in practice, finishing 19th. Ragan shared the truck with Martin for the balance of the season and had six top-tens and one pole in the 6 truck. Martin had the most success in the truck, winning five races. Overall, the team finished 2nd in the owner's points.

In 2007, Mark Martin moved on to a new role with another team. In his place, Roush-Fenway hired 2003 NCTS Champion Travis Kvapil. Kvapil, after two years of struggling to launch his Cup Series career, returned to the Truck Series in 2007. During the season, Kvapil almost won the opening race at Daytona, and won four races en route to a sixth-place finish in points.

Colin Braun in 2008.

As Kvapil heads back to the Sprint Cup Series with Yates Racing, former Rolex Sports Car Series driver Colin Braun took Kvapil's place in the No. 6 truck with sponsorship from Con-way. In his rookie season, Braun had three top-fives and finished 13th in points, winning Rookie of the Year. In 2009, he won at Michigan and finished 5th in points. With moving Braun to the Nationwide Series for the 2010 season, Roush shut down this team and ended its Truck Series program. He later sold the remaining trucks to Cup Series driver Kyle Busch for him to start his own truck team.

The original truck in Roush's stable debuted in 1995 at the Heartland Park Topeka road course. It was No. 61 and driven to a fourth-place finish by Todd Bodine. Bodine had four more top ten runs before Ted Musgrave drove to a fourth-place finish at Phoenix. In 1996, the car switched to No. 80, and Joe Ruttman was at the wheel, nailing down sixteen top-10s and finishing 4th in points. In 1997, with sponsorship from LCI, Ruttman won five times and finished 3rd in points.

For the first race in 1998 at Walt Disney World Speedway, Ruttman piloted the No. 50, rookie Greg Biffle drove the No. 80, and Chuck Bown ran the No. 99. After Bown departed the team, Ruttman took over the No. 99, and Biffle moved from the No. 80, which was discontinued, to the No. 50. Biffle had been hired by Roush under the recommendation of Benny Parsons, and he would be sponsored by W. W. Grainger.[18] Although he failed to win a race, Biffle won four poles and finished eighth in points.

Biffle would go on a tear in 1999 when he won nine times and was in contention for the championship for much of the season before finally losing to Jack Sprague. His 2000 season was less dominant with only five wins, but he was able to win the championship by 230 points over teammate Kurt Busch.[18]

Jon Wood's No. 50 truck in 2002.

With Biffle moving up to the Busch Series, in 2001, Roush hired Winston Modified Tour driver Chuck Hossfeld to drive the truck after he won 2000 Roush "Gong Show" competition.[19][20][21] Hossfeld struggled in his rookie year, and soon he was released, with Jon Wood driving the truck for the remainder of the season.[19][20]

Wood's audition was impressive enough to earn him a full-time run in 2002, and he posted twelve top-ten finishes in the U.S. Navy sponsored truck and finished 12th in points in his first full year. Wood had two wins the next year and finished 15th in points in 2004 before moving on to JTG Racing in the Busch Series.

In 2005, Todd Kluever, another "Gong Show" winner, piloted the truck sponsored by Shell Rotella T and World Financial Group. Kluever earned six top five and twelve top ten finishes in his rookie season, winning the Rookie of the Year award.[17][22][23]

The 50 truck in 2007 driven by Danny O’Quinn Jr.

After Martin's strong start to the 2006 season, his original limited schedule in the No. 6 was expanded. Roush decided to run another part-time team for rookie David Ragan to fill out his original schedule. Ragan took the No. 50 to a 22nd-place finish at Atlanta, but struggled in his next few starts in both the No. 50 and the No. 6. Carl Edwards ran the No. 50 at the Dover race, achieving the team's only top five of the season, and Ragan returned at the Michigan race. Ragan's best finish in the No. 50 came at Atlanta where he finished sixth. Peter Shepherd and Michel Jourdain Jr. also drove the No. 50 on a part-time basis during the season with sponsorship from PurposeMoney.com. Edwards drove the truck for the first two races of the 2007 season unsponsored, scoring the team's only top five of the season at California Speedway. It was then announced that T. J. Bell would drive the truck for sixteen races, bringing sponsorship from Heathcliff's Cat Litter. Development drivers Peter Shepherd, Danny O'Quinn Jr., and Colin Braun also drove the No. 50 truck, with sponsorship from Northern Tool and Equipment.

The No. 99 truck debuted at Heartland Park Topeka in 1996. It was sponsored by Exide Batteries and driven to an eighth-place finish by Jeff Burton. Posting three top tens in four races that year, he shared the ride with Mark Martin, who won at North Wilkesboro Speedway. The next year, Chuck Bown was hired to drive full-time, posting thirteen top tens and finishing ninth in points. Bown drove the first race of the 1998 season at Walt Disney World Speedway, before Joe Ruttman moved over to the truck for the remainder of the year, winning once and finishing third in points. Mike Bliss was next to tackle the ride, scoring a win at Heartland Park Topeka but only finishing ninth in points. When Bliss left for an ill-fated rookie year in Winston Cup, Kurt Busch was named the new driver for 2000. Busch won four times and finished second to teammate Biffle in the championship, easily winning Rookie of the Year.

Both Busch and Exide exited after that season (Busch moving to the Cup Series), and rookie Nathan Haseleu took over.[19][20] The truck was largely unsponsored at the beginning of the year, with Eldon becoming the sponsor after nine races. Despite posting four top ten finishes in twelve starts, Hasleau was waived mid-season, replaced initially by former Truck Series drivers Greg Biffle and Kurt Busch.[19][20] Biffle scored two wins in the truck.[24] Kurt's younger brother Kyle would also run six races in the second half of the season, earning two top tens at the age of 16.[25] Kyle Busch was scheduled to race the truck full-time in 2002, but during the 2001 season finale at Fontana he was ejected from the race due to conflicts with track sponsor Marlboro. Afterwards, NASCAR announced all drivers in its top three series must be at least 18 years of age. Tim Woods III would replace Busch in the race.[25][26][27][28]

After Tim Fedewa ran the 2002 season-opener in the truck, and with the now 17-year-old Busch not able to compete, the team did not run for the rest of the year due to lack of sponsorship.[26]

Carl Edwards in 2004.

The truck returned in 2003 with Carl Edwards driving;[17] although the United States Navy was the truck's original sponsor, they left the team midway through the year and Edwards ran largely unsponsored until Superchips came on to sponsor him.[17] Edwards won three races and the Rookie of the Year title.[17] He repeated his win total in 2004 and moved up to fourth in points, and following Jeff Burton's departure from Roush Racing he began splitting time between the Truck Series and the Nextel Cup Series.[17][29]

Erik Darnell in 2008.

When Edwards moved up to Nextel Cup for 2005, Roush hired a former Cup driver, Ricky Craven, to take his place.[22] Despite posting seven top tens and winning at Martinsville, Roush and Craven announced they would not be back together in 2006.

Erik Darnell piloted the No. 99 truck full-time in 2006 with at first Woolrich, but eventually Northern Tool and Equipment as sponsor to a 2006 Rookie of the Year title.[17] 2007 brought about Darnell's first win at Kansas,[17] but inconsistency left the team 12th in points at season's end. In 2008, Darnell captured one win at Michigan by only .005 seconds over eventual champion Johnny Benson and ended the season fourth in the standings. This team was shut down after the 2008 season, as the team was being moved up for a part-time schedule in the Nationwide Series.

In 2007, Erik Darnell drove the No. 99 in three races, finishing second at Kansas and winning at Kentucky and Michigan.[30] Travis Kvapil drove one race at Pocono, failing to finish, and Colin Braun drove three races later in the year, collecting three top tens.[31] For 2008, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. drove an Aflac sponsored No. 99 to compete in the championship, winning two races at Kentucky and Pocono and collecting ten top-fives. During the last race at Toledo Speedway, he and Scott Speed battled for the championship, and Stenhouse ran Speed up the track causing a caution. Speed later wrecked in retaliation, knocking Stenhouse and himself out of the race. Justin Allgaier won the championship, while Stenhouse and Speed slipped to 4th and 5th in the final standings.[32]

Outside Roush headquarters.

Perhaps Roush Racing's most famous partnership is with the now defunct-Yates Racing, a longtime rival Ford team. In 2004, the two teams announced a program to combine their engine divisions, now known as Roush-Yates Engines (RYE), a move which greatly improved the power of both organizations' engines. By 2006, most Ford teams were using the Roush-Yates engines, including long-time Ford team and Roush affiliate Wood Brothers Racing (then Wood Brothers/JTG Racing). Current Roush-Yates clients include Team Penske (TP), Wood Brothers Racing (WBR), Stewart-Haas Racing[33] (SHR), Front Row Motorsports (FRM), and Rick Ware Racing (RWR).[2][11][34]

Roush Fenway also has technical alliances with Front Row Motorsports, providing engines, chassis, and bodies as well as technical support.[35][36] Roush also provided heavy technical support to Yates Racing from 2008 to the team's closure at the end of 2009, when it merged with Richard Petty Motorsports.[37][38] As of 2017, Roush supplies engines and chassis to 13 Cup teams.

The first technical alliance between Roush Racing and another organization was with Wood Brothers Racing, another longtime Ford team and the oldest active team in the sport. The Wood Brothers alliance began in mid-2000, after Roush had provided the team with engines the previous two seasons.[39][40][41] The relationship later expanded when the team fielded Roush development driver Trevor Bayne from late-2010 to 2014.[42] It would end after that season, with the Wood Brothers currently receiving equipment and support (other than engines) from Team Penske.[43]

In 2005, nine-time Pro Bowl NFL wide receiver Tim Brown announced that he intended to start his own NASCAR team, most likely No. 81, and receive equipment from Roush Racing.[44] Brown also stated that he will let Roush select his driver.[45] The series the team will run will depend on how much sponsorship money the team gets.

Brown had said that his team will most likely not enter NASCAR until 2007, but as of October 2006, no further announcements have been made about the status of this partnership.

In 2006, SoBe No Fear energy drink announced that it was forming a new team to run full-time in 2007, with a car driven by road racing specialist Boris Said. It was also announced that this new team would be affiliated with Roush Racing. This allows Roush to sell No Fear Racing cars and equipment, as well as help them with engineering. In return, Said is tutoring Roush's younger drivers on road course racing.[46] The team began running a limited schedule with the Sonoma road course in 2006.

Starting with the 2007 season, Robby Gordon switched from Chevrolet to Ford vehicles after signing a contract with Ford Racing. He leased engines from the Roush/Yates engine program through the 2007 season, until he switched to Gillett Evernham engines and a Dodge Charger.

On February 14, 2007, the Fenway Sports Group, owner of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, purchased 50% of Roush Racing to create a new corporate entity, Roush Fenway Racing.[47]

Mike Dee, president of the Fenway Sports Group was quoted as saying, "Although there have been many instances of cross-ownership in the world of professional sports, this partnership marks the first time that owners of a professional franchise in one of the four major leagues have crossed over into the world of NASCAR."