Jack Roush

Jack Roush
Born	April 19, 1942(1942-04-19) Covington, Kentucky, United States
Nationality	United States
Occupation	NASCAR team owner

Jack Roush (born April 19, 1942) is the founder, CEO, and co-owner along with John Henry of Roush Fenway Racing, a NASCAR team headquartered in Concord, North Carolina, and is Chairman of the Board of Roush Enterprises.

Roush Enterprises is the parent company for Roush Racing as well as Roush Industries, a freelance engineering firm, and Roush Performance, an automotive aftermarket development company, both headquartered in Livonia, Michigan. His companies employ more than 2,000 people throughout North America and Europe.

Rarely seen without his trademark Panama hat, Roush is known on the NASCAR circuit as "The Cat in the Hat".

Roush was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame on April 27, 2006. In 2008, Roush was elected to the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame and will be inducted on Sept. 13, 2010, in Novi.[1]

Early years

Roush holding a winner's trophy

Roush was born in Covington, Kentucky and grew up in Manchester, Ohio. He earned a Mathematics degree with a bachelors in physics from Berea College, and a masters in Scientific Mathematics from Eastern Michigan University.

Klaus Ludwig drove the Roush-Zakspeed Ford Mustang Turbo during the 1981 and 1982 Camel GT race seasons.

Roush worked at Ford after graduating in 1966, and left in 1970 to pursue his own company. He worked for a year at Chrysler before leaving to open his own engineering business. Jack then went on to partner with Wayne Gapp to race in NHRA, IHRA, and AHRA drag racing events.

Throughout much of his career Roush offered for sale the parts that he developed for his own team. In 1982, he partnered with German firm Zakspeed to develop road racing vehicles for Ford. This led to a very successful run in the Trans-Am series and IMSA Camel GT in the 80s and early 90s. In 1988, Roush moved south and founded a NASCAR Sprint Cup team now called Roush Fenway Racing with driver Mark Martin.

NASCAR

Roush Fenway Racing currently fields four cars in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (driven by Matt Kenseth, Rickey Stenhouse Jr. Stenhouse Jr. will run selected Cup races in 2012, Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards), and three cars in the NASCAR Nationwide Series (driven by Carl Edwards, Trevor Bayne, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.). Jack Roush has won 6 championships as a car owner in NASCAR's top 3 series. 2 Sprint Cup titles (2003 with Matt Kenseth and 2004 with Kurt Busch), 3 Nationwide Series titles (2002 with Greg Biffle, 2007 with Carl Edwards and 2011 with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ) and a Camping World Truck Series title in 2000 with driver Greg Biffle. In 2009 he got his first Daytona 500 victory with driver Matt Kenseth. Since Jack entered NASCAR competition his team has 260 NASCAR wins, 168 poles, 1,104 top-five and 1,838 top-10 finishes.

Roush Performance

Main article: Roush Performance

A Roush-engineered Ford Mustang Probe IMSA GTP car.

ROUSH Performance sells a variety of vehicles, parts, and high-performance crate engines. Perhaps best known for the line of upfitted Ford Mustangs, they have more than 16,000 vehicles on the roads today. Typical improvements on the base chassis include appearance packages (body kit, wheels, etc.), suspension and handling upgrades, and horsepower boosts through the use of a ROUSHcharger supercharger system.

ROUSH Performance sells versions of their Mustang with as much as 540 horsepower and 510 lb-ft of torque.

Additionally, the company has expanded into offering propane-fueled vehicles designed for fleet usage. They have packages available to convert the Ford F-150/250/350 and E-150/250/350 vans. Propane is an excellent alternative fuel for fleets; it typically costs less than gasoline (especially when tax credits are implemented), is 90% produced in America which lessens American dependency on foreign oil, and burns substantially cleaner than gasoline or diesel. ROUSH propane-fueled vehicles have the same horsepower, torque and towing capacity as their gasoline-powered equivalent so there is no loss of vehicle functionality.

The company has a line of more than 1,500 high-performance parts that fit a variety of vehicles including the Mustang, F-150, Focus and others. The crate engines can be customized per owner preference and are the choice of many hot rod and Cobra replicar builders such as Chip Foose, Roy Brizio, and Superformance.

Plane crashes

On April 20, 2002, Roush almost lost his life when his private plane, an Aircam, went down in a lake in Troy, Alabama. Roush was underwater and unconscious, suffering from a head concussion, when Larry Hicks, a retired Marine, rescued Roush, pulled him to safety, and administered CPR. Shortly afterwards, Roush was flown to UAB Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama where he was treated for a head injury, broken ribs, and a shattered left leg. Hicks was injured as a result of the rescue, suffering cramps in both his arms and first degree chemical burns on his body from the fuel.

On July 27, 2010, Roush crash-landed in his Hawker Beechcraft Premier 390 jet, (registration N6JR,) during an approach to the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) AirVenture Fly-In in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in the late afternoon. He walked out of the plane and was taken to a nearby hospital. His condition was listed at serious but stable that evening. On August 3, Roush was upgraded to fair condition. On August 13, Roush made his first at track appearance since the incident at the Michigan International Speedway. During that time he confirmed that he fractured his back, broke his jaw, and lost his left eye as a result.