Two Cup titles, five Busch/Xfinity Series crowns, one Truck Series title, and 335 race wins across NASCAR’s three series — that is the story of present-day RFK Racing, which began in 1988 as Roush Racing. A team and a rich legacy born of one Ford engineer’s love for stock car racing. With all that history come memories in the form of time capsules, and in Nashville, a large collection of Jack Roush’s racing legacy went under the hammer at an auction.
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Jack Roush began his NASCAR operation as a single-car Cup team with Mark Martin as his driver. And over the years, Roush’s dedication to the sport and will to keep innovating with stock cars formed the foundations of one of NASCAR’s most recognized operations.
Roush himself was present at the Mecum auction in Nashville to see several of his cars sold, and according to Shannon Spake, the 84-year-old businessman, Roush didn’t get a wink of sleep the night before as memories linked to each car came flooding back.
It wasn’t a business decision to put the cars up for auction. For Roush Automotive Collection, the auction was a requirement because the collection’s size was too vast and a bit of clearance was needed. And that clearance came with several cars driven by the likes of Carl Edwards, Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth, Mark Martin, Jeff Burton, Greg Biffle, and even Ricky Stenhouse Jr. being picked out of Roush’s collection to find new homes.
One of the greatest moments for Roush’s team was the first Cup title, which came after 15 years of toiling in NASCAR, when Matt Kenseth won in 2003 in the No. 17 Ford Taurus. That car went under the hammer and was sold for $58,300. Another Kenseth-driven car that was sold was the Ford Fusion he drove to victory lane in Talladega in 2012, which went for $23,000.
Before Roush entered the NASCAR world, he had already entered the racing world in SCCA and IMSA. It was one of the IMSA cars that pulled in the highest sum at the auction. A 1995 Ford Mustang Cobra, driven to victory in the GTS-1 Class at the Rolex Dayton 24 Hours by Paul Newman, with race-worn bodywork, was sold for $935,000.
Another car with great winning significance was the 1997 Ford Mustang Cobra Trans-Am road race car, which Tommy Kendall drove to a record 11 wins and the SCCA Championship. That car was sold for $825,000.
The collection that went under the hammer featured several vintage and classic cars as well as several modern-day road cars, but a major chunk of it was race-driven and race-winning Fords, with the highest-selling car that competed in a NASCAR race being Kurt Busch’s No. 99 Ford F-150, which he drove in his rookie season in the Truck series. That F-150 sold for $110,000.
The Ford Fusion that Carl Edwards drove to victory lane at the 2007 Citizens Bank 400 in Michigan went under the hammer for $59,400. Carl Edwards drove the first-ever Ford Mustang to win a NASCAR Nationwide Series race in 2011. That car sold for $73,700. Another Edwards-driven car that was sold for $55,000 was the 2008 Ford Fusion V-8.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s 2011 Nationwide Series-winning Ford Mustang was sold for $60,500. The last car Mark Martin drove in the Busch Series, a 2000 Ford Taurus, sold for $23,100.
Greg Biffle won two titles for Roush, the 2000 Truck Series and the 2002 Busch Series. While those cars didn’t go under the hammer, two others did. A 2004 Ford Taurus sold for $51,700, the proceeds from which will go to the Biffle Family Legacy Impact Fund. The other Biffle-driven car that went under the hammer was the 2009 Ford Fusion, which he shared with Edwards. It was this car that brought Roush’s 100th Nationwide victory. The car sold for $27,500.
While other notable cars were Jeff Burton’s 2000 Ford Taurus, which sold for $55,000 and Colin Braun’s 2009 Ford F-150, which sold for $46,200, the centerpiece of the collection that is still under bidding is a car that predated Roush Racing and has deeper roots in Jack Roush’s story.
When one thinks of Roush, two aspects of his life define his career and his legacy: firstly, Ford performance, and the other, racing. In 1971, Roush bought a 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429 Fastback for $1,100. The royal maroon Mustang features a 460-cubic-inch short-block Pro Stock V8, which was built by Roush himself.
The car is said to be one of his favorites, having literally put his sweat into its very DNA, and the price is currently hovering at $425,000, with the bidding ongoing. While it’s clear that the racing cars were bought by those passionate about racing, the rarity of this particular Mustang is drawing the attention it deserves from car enthusiasts who understand and appreciate the work put in by the man behind it all, Jack Roush.