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Roush Fenway Racing downsizing to two-car operation in Sprint Cup

Crown Royal Presents The John Wayne Walding 400 - Practice

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - JULY 26: Team owner Jack Roush looks on in the garage area during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Crown Royal Presents The John Wayne Walding 400 at the Brickyard Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 26, 2014 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

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Roush Fenway Racing will reduce its Sprint Cup program from a three-car operation to two full-time cars in 2017.

Following the departure of Greg Biffle on Nov. 21, Roush will field the No. 6 of Trevor Bayne and No. 17 of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

This will be the fewest cars Roush has fielded since 1995, when Mark Martin and Ted Musgrave were with the team.

At its peak, organization fielded five teams in 2009 after being grandfathered in on NASCAR’s four-team limit. Roush fielded four teams from 2010-12, cutting back to three teams after Matt Kenseth left for Joe Gibbs Racing.

The charter that belonged to Biffle’s team will be leased to JTG Daugherty Racing in 2017 as it fields Chris Buescher.

“We have been able to shore up our plans for 2017 and we feel that this will continue to move us in a direction that will yield improved performance and results,” said Roush Fenway co-owner Jack Roush in a press release. “We saw improvement in our cars and made substantial gains in our performance at times last season, and we will continue to build on that by maintaining a robust engineering group in order to take the next step by consistently running up front.”

The team, which has not won a Cup race since 2014, also announced that Kevin Kidd and Tommy Wheeler will lead the team, with Kidd as competition director and Wheeler as operations manager.

Matt Puccia will continue in his role as crew chief on the No. 6 team. Brian Pattie, who was Biffle’s crew chief, will move into the same role on the No. 17, with Nick Sandler transitioning into the role of director of engineering.

Robbie Reiser, who has been the general manager of Roush since 2007, will remain with the team in a role that has not been determined yet.

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