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2016 Team Reviews: Roush Fenway Racing

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (L) led the way for Roush with a 21st-place finish in the 2016 points standings. (Getty)
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (L) led the way for Roush with a 21st-place finish in the 2016 points standings. (Getty)

Did you know we’re closer to the start of the 2017 Daytona 500 than we are to when the Chase began at Chicago in September? Crazy.

But before we start getting ready for 2017, let’s take a look back at 2016.

ROUSH FENWAY RACING
Drivers: Trevor Bayne, Greg Biffle, Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Stenhouse Jr.
Points position: 21st (four spots higher than 2015)
Top 5s: 4
Top 10s: 6

Bayne
Points position: 22nd (seven spots higher than 2015)
Top 5s: 2
Top 10s: 5

Biffle
Points position: 23rd (three spots lower than 2015)
Top 5s: 1
Top 10s: 3

Incremental progress? The final standings show Roush made strides from a disastrous 2015. But the team has a long way to go to be the staunch contender it once was in the early to mid-2000s.

Stenhouse entered the season with three career top-five finishes. He had four in 2016. Predictably, one of those was at Bristol, where he finished second to Kevin Harvick in August. Two of Stenhouse’s three top fives entering the season came at the short track. Two of the other three top fives in 2016 came at Daytona and Talladega.

Bayne was fifth at Bristol in the spring and was third at Daytona in July. They were his first top-five finishes since he won the 2011 Daytona 500 — a drought of over 5 years and 99 races. His five top-10 finishes also doubled his career mark.

Biffle was fifth at New Hampshire in July, a week after finishing sixth at Kentucky, a week after finishing eighth at Daytona. Count those up and you’ve got all three top-10 finishes he had in 2016.

Biffle isn’t returning to the team in 2017 and is currently looking for a ride while enjoying the fruits of juvenile jokes on Twitter. If there’s a bright side to his 2016, it’s that he’s been more entertaining on the social media platform in the past three weeks than he had ever been in the years previous.

Without Biffle, Bayne and Stenhouse are left as the team’s two primary drivers with the lease of Biffle’s charter to JTG-Daugherty Racing and Roush driver Chris Buescher for a second team there. Assuming Roush can put the resources it had for three cars to use with two cars, it’s reasonable to expect some more improvement in 2017.

But here’s where it gets tricky. You might have noticed above that Daytona, Talladega and Bristol played quite frequently in Roush’s 2016 success. Intermediate tracks did not. Only Stenhouse and Biffle had top 10s at 1.5 or 2-mile tracks. And they combined for three of them with Stenhouse’s fifth at Fontana in an overtime finish leading the way.

You can’t hope to make the Chase in the Cup Series if you can’t provide some flashes of intermediate track speed. Roush knows this, so expect that performance to be top of mind for 2017.

Previous reviews: Richard Petty Motorsports

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!