Biffle to take on leadership role

Changes at Roush give veteran driver young teammates.

Greg Biffle is the next man up for Roush Fenway Racing.

Carl Edwards is gone, bolting to Joe Gibbs Racing. He joins another expat of Roush Fenway, Matt Kenseth, who left at the end of the 2012 season to race for Gibbs.

There’s a bit of void now over at Roush with just Biffle as a veteran voice of reason, a go-to guy in the garage when things are going badly.

The retrofitted Roush team will have a bunch of young ’uns this season, with Trevor Bayne, 23, stepping up to a full-time Cup driver, along with Ricky Stenhouse, 27.

No pressure or anything, Mr. Biffle.

“I’m not necessarily going to be heard louder or have more input,” Biffle said. “It’s that my input has to be the best it can be. Because there isn’t any more that have lateral experience like Matt and Carl, sitting on both sides of me.

“We had an equal voice on how our car drove and what we felt like the problems were. Now a little more of that comes on my shoulders.”

Biffle, 45, should be up to speed with the new dynamics and challenges. He has won championships in the other top tiers of NASCAR racing, although a Cup title remains elusive despite 19 wins overall and a second-place finish in 2005.

But it’s still asking a lot, given the relative in- experience of Bayne and Stenhouse. Stenhouse finished 27th in points last season, and Bayne has yet to recapture the magic mojo of becoming the youngest Daytona 500 champion in the history of the sport.

“We had major issues that we’ve ironed out, and feel like in 2015, we’re going to come out fairly strong,” Biffle said. “Are we all the way there yet? No. But we feel really strongly that we’re going down the correct path now. It’s only up from here.”

Martin leaves Roush: Mark Martin announced he is no longer working in a driver-development role with Roush Fenway Racing.

He used social media to get the word out. “I didn’t want to go to the races. I’ve done enough of that for now. Except for dirt track,” Martin tweeted.

Roush Fenway had announced in July that Martin would be serving as a coach of sorts for its drivers. Martin has strong ties to owner Jack Roush. He was the first Cup driver for Roush.

Martin’s last year of Cup competition was 2013, when he competed in 15 races for Michael Waltrip Racing, and 12 races for Stewart-Haas Racing after Tony Stewart suffered a broken leg.

He also drove for Joe Gibbs Racing once, replacing Denny Hamlin.

Greg Biffle, 45, has earned 19 Sprint Cup victories.