Jack Roush

By H.A. Branham

Jack Roush goes into the IMSA Hall of Fame accompanied by the Roush Mustang, one of IMSA’s iconic cars, arguably the greatest of all in the production-based GTO class that for years ran as one of the best-kept secrets, ever, in big-time auto racing.

But there were no secrets when it came to knowing about the expertise of Roush, a multi-faceted mechanical mind who never met a racing series he couldn’t conquer – or at least give it a try.

Roush – the man long-known as “the Cat in the Hat” because of his ever-present straw fedora in the garage – ensured his sports car legacy with one of the most remarkable win streaks in the history of any sort of racing. Between 1985-95, Roush Racing entries took 10 consecutive class victories (the team won nine straight, sat out the ’94 event and returned to win again in 1995) in the Rolex 24 At Daytona – IMSA’s premier, season-opening event.

Concurrent, Roush rides were pillaging the Sports Car Club of America Trans-Am Series, which had rules similar to GTO. It was excellence – and hats – on display at so many racetracks, long before Roush was one of the most well-known car owners in American racing prior to his NASCAR years, which have produced two Daytona 500 championships.

“I had not planned on winning the Daytona 500 race [originally],” Roush said. “I went for years as a road racer to the 24 Hours, to a number of other road racing events. In fact, I won 14 times in 14 different road racing events, before I started NASCAR Cup racing.”

Roush said Ford wanted him to replicate his road racing success: “They were anxious to have a large footprint [in NASCAR] and they asked me in if I’d be willing to bring the same hand-in-glove approach to stock-car racing and NASCAR that I had to road racing.

“The success we had in road racing was unprecedented. It was unprecedented both in being able to bring forth talented young drivers and have success with them, and also the involvement we had with Ford for the things that were maybe beyond their vision sometimes. And taking the advice and consulting and engineering that they brought to the table and applying it in a way that was constructive and productive and won races.”

Back in ’81, Roush had partnered with German car owner Eric Zakowski to form Zakspeed-Roush; they worked with Ford to build a GTP-class Mustang that won its IMSA debut at Road America. Three years later Roush started Roush-Protofab for his efforts in IMSA and SCCA races. History-making season ensued, with Roush employing an all-star cast of drivers that included Scott Pruett, Mark Martin, Tommy Kendall, Paul Newman and Caitlyn Jenner.

And that was not a Mustang-exclusive situation. Roush fielded other machinery under the Ford umbrella in IMSA, awesome cars like the Mercury Merkur XR4Ti, the Lincoln-Mercury CougarXR-7. In that special 10-year run of Rolex 24 victories from 1985-1995 – seven were with Ford Mustangs.