Roush team eyes turnaround

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Jack Roush couldn't wait to get to Las Vegas.

The gaming tables hold no allure for the Winston Cup team owner. It's the 1 1/2-mile oval on the north side of the desert city that has his eyes gleaming in anticipation.

NASCAR has run its top stock car series at Las Vegas Motor Speedway three times, and all three have been dominated by Roush cars.

"That place has been real good to us," Roush said.

In 1998, Mark Martin won the inaugural event and all five Roush cars entered finished in the top 10.

The next year, Jeff Burton, who had run second to Martin in the first outing, beat his older brother, Ward.

Last year, it was no contest. Burton won again, and Martin finished third.

Actually, Roush has a Vegas streak of five straight wins, if you count the Saturday Busch Series events. Martin won the race in 1999 and Burton swept the weekend last year.

"The first time we went out there, my feeling was that Mark and Jeff have both adapted really quickly to new places," Roush said. "As the string continues, I guess I've underestimated the guys."

Roush doesn't expected to win both races this time, but no one else would be surprised -- even though his team is off to a miserable start.

In the first two races of the season, Burton's 19th-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 is the best showing by any of Roush's four Winston Cup entries.

Martin, a perennial championship contender, has finished 33rd and 20th; last year's top rookie, Matt Kenseth, finished 21st and 28th; touted rookie Kurt Busch finished 41st and 36th; and Burton is coming off a 37th-place run in Monday's rain-delayed race in Rockingham.

"The Fords were at an aerodynamic disadvantage in Daytona and Rockingham was just circumstances," Roush said. "I don't know if things will turn around in Las Vegas, but we certainly hope so."

Burton said the team hasn't spent much time talking about it's Las Vegas fortunes.

"We've had conversations about our lack of success at places, but I have never had a conversation with Jack about our success in Vegas," he said. "Jack's one of those people that when things are going well, you don't hear from him. When you start seeing him around a whole lot, something is not right and something isn't going the way it should be."

Although he's hoping the Fords -- and the Roush Tauruses in particular -- do indeed have an edge here, Burton is taking nothing for granted.

"I have so much respect for how hard it is that I don't think it means anything that we ran well here last year," Burton said. "I think it shows we have the ability to do it, which is obviously the big thing. But having the ability to do it and getting it done are two different things."

To keep the streak going, the Roush cars will have to end another string -- two straight wins by Chevrolets fielded by Dale Earnhardt Inc.

Michael Waltrip won in Daytona on the day his boss, Dale Earnhardt, was killed in a last-lap crash. Teammate Steve Park earned an emotional victory in Rockingham the day after the third DEI driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., crashed out before the rains came and postponed the finish.