With only one of its three drivers in the top 20 in points and the other two outside the top 25, this has been a forgettable year for Roush Fenway Racing so far.
Greg Biffle, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Trevor Bayne have combined for six top-10 finishes this season.
“I think there are a lot of things people don’t know behind the scenes that we’ve been working on at Roush Fenway Racing,” said Bayne in the Detroit Free Press. “And part of that is our simulation tool, right. With not being able to test, you can’t go and change a spring or a control arm, and see if the car goes faster. You’ve got to type it into your computer and see what the computer tells you to do.
“We are using all the tools the best that we can, but some of our tools are broken and we are trying to fix that. We are three to four years behind on some of our simulation tools from some of the teams who have been working on it longer. So, we realize that we are at the end of the road with the current tool we had going into the season and we knew we needed to have a tool with more capabilities.
“It takes time to develop … but I think our cars will be fast again.”
So is Ford providing Team Penske - which has had Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski each win a race this season and rank in the top six in points - with better tools?
“I think Ford is supporting both teams as much as possible,” Bayne told the newspaper. “I think Ford is a great partner of ours. As I’ve said, Penske was one of those teams that had a different software, different capabilities than we had with our simulation tools and are three to four years ahead with that.”
In April, car owner Jack Roush discussed with NASCAR Talk what his organization was using for its computer simulation program.
In 2010, Roush cited issues with computer simulation for his organization’s struggles that season. Roush cars won four races that season with three drivers in the top six in points.