Early years

Roush was born in Covington, Kentucky and grew up in Manchester, Ohio. He earned a Mathematics degree with a bachelors in physics from Berea College, and a masters in Scientific Mathematics from Eastern Michigan University.

Roush worked at Ford after graduating in 1966, and left in 1970 to pursue his own company. He worked for a year at Chrysler before leaving to open his own engineering business. Roush then went on to partner with Wayne Gapp to race in NHRA, IHRA, and AHRA drag racing events.

Throughout much of his career Roush offered for sale the parts that he developed for his own team. In 1982, he partnered with German firm Zakspeed to develop road racing vehicles for Ford. This led to a very successful run in the Trans-Am series and IMSA Camel GT in the 1980s and early 90s. In 1988, Roush moved south and founded a NASCAR Sprint Cup team now called Roush Fenway Racing with driver Mark Martin.

NASCAR

Roush Fenway Racing currently fields three cars in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (driven by Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Greg Biffle and Trevor Bayne), and four cars in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (driven by Darrell Wallace, Jr., Elliott Sadler, Ryan Reed and Chris Buescher.) Roush has won 7 championships as a car owner in NASCAR's top 3 series: 2 Sprint Cup titles (2003 with Matt Kenseth and 2004 with Kurt Busch), 4 Nationwide Series titles (2002 with Biffle, 2007 with Edwards and 2011-2012 with Stenhouse, Jr.) and a Camping World Truck Series title in 2000 with driver Biffle. Roush has 2 Daytona 500 victories as a car owner, both with driver Matt Kenseth in 2009 and 2012. Since Roush entered NASCAR competition his team has 283 wins and 212 poles.

Opposition of Toyota

Throughout his NASCAR career Roush is an outspoken opponent of Toyota's NASCAR operations. Roush is vocally loyal to Ford and throughout his career has made cracks against Toyota being in NASCAR. One time in 2003 when asked for a reaction to Toyota's interests in joining NASCAR as a manufacturer team, Roush compared it to Pearl Harbor and called them "Ankle-biting chihuahuas." In 2007 Roush entered a verbal feud with Toyota team leader Lee White during the Toyota controversy following the rocket fuel incident. Though he and White are close friends & former business partners, Roush and White have been seen exchanging verbal words in media conferences. Later Roush almost sued Toyota, accusing the Toyota teams (Joe Gibbs Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing) of stealing some of his car parts.

Roush Performance

Main article: Roush Performance

ROUSH Performance sells a variety of vehicles, parts, and high-performance crate engines. Perhaps best known for the line of upfitted Ford Mustangs, they have more than 16,000 vehicles on the roads today. Typical improvements on the base chassis include appearance packages (body kit, wheels, etc.), suspension and handling upgrades, and horsepower boosts through the use of a ROUSHcharger supercharger system. ROUSH Performance sells versions of their Mustang with as much as 675 horsepower and 510 lb-ft of torque.

The company has a line of more than 1,500 high-performance parts that fit a variety of vehicles including the Mustang, F-150, Focus and others. The crate engines can be customized per owner preference and are the choice of many hot rod and Cobra replicar builders such as Chip Foose, Roy Brizio, and Superformance.

ROUSH CleanTech

Roush has expanded into offering propane-autogas-fueled vehicles designed for fleet usage. The company product offerings include propane autogas fuel system technology for light light- and medium-duty Ford commercial vehicles, and Type A and Type C Blue Bird Corporation school buses. Most vehicle kits offer multiple tank configurations.

Propane autogas is a domestically produced alternative fuel which costs less than conventional fuels. Over the past 30 years, propane autogas has cost, on average, 30 percent less than gasoline and 40 percent less than diesel. More than 90 percent is produced in the U.S. (and an additional 7 percent from Canada), which lessens American dependency on foreign oil. The fuel burns substantially cleaner than gasoline or diesel. ROUSH CleanTech's propane-autogas-fueled vehicles have the same horsepower, torque and towing capacity as their gasoline-powered equivalent so there is no loss of vehicle functionality. Ford's factory warranty remains intact on the ROUSH CleanTech vehicles.

Across the nation, companies such as DISH, SuperShuttle, ThyssenKrupp Elevator and hundreds of school districts have experienced reduced fuel and operating costs while lowering their carbon footprint with propane autogas vehicles.

ROUSH CleanTech's president Joe Thompson blogs about alternative fuels at Fuel for Thought.

Plane crashes

On April 20, 2002, Roush almost lost his life when his private plane, an Aircam, went down in a lake in Troy, Alabama. Roush was underwater and unconscious, suffering from a concussion, when Larry Hicks, a retired Marine in a nearby boat, rescued Roush from under water, pulled him to safety, and administered CPR. Shortly afterwards, Roush was flown to UAB Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was treated for a head injury, broken ribs, and a shattered left leg. Hicks was injured as a result of the rescue, suffering cramps in both his arms and first degree chemical burns on his body from the fuel.

On July 27, 2010, Roush crash-landed in his Hawker Beechcraft Premier 390 jet (registration N6JR) during an approach to the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) AirVenture Fly-In in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in the late afternoon. He walked out of the plane and was taken to a nearby hospital. His condition was listed at serious but stable that evening. On August 3, Roush was upgraded to fair condition. On August 13, Roush made his first at track appearance since the incident at the Michigan International Speedway. During that time he confirmed that he fractured his back, broke his jaw, and lost his left eye as a result. The National Transportation Safety Board attributed the cause of the crash to pilot error, specifically, "pilot's decision not to advance the engines to takeoff power during the go-around, as stipulated by the airplane flight manual, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall at a low altitude."

[ Source: Wikipedia ]