Rusty Jarrett / Getty Images

Jack Roush, owner of Roush Racing, finally has a team worth talking about.

And there’s more.

“It’s only my opinion,” Martin added, “but I believe that Roush Racing has the hottest lineup of drivers in NASCAR, depth wise. We don’t have an off team right now, period. We’ve got great engines and great drivers and great crew chiefs.”

It would be hard for anybody to dispute that right now.

Rusty Wallace, a contemporary of Martin and also in his final Cup season, said, “Those Roush guys have got it figured out. That’s pretty obvious.”

If the 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup championship started right now, Roush would have four of the 11 cars eligible to race for the title. Last year, for the inaugural Chase, he had three — Busch, Martin and Kenseth.

Roush, 62, who won numerous championships in sports car racing before finding success in NASCAR, is relishing the roll his Cup teams are on.

“You never know how long it’s going to last and I’m going to make sure I feel good about it for as long as I can,” he said, grinning.

He credits the recent success to “really, really smart people” who are able to adapt to rule changes and new equipment faster than peers on other teams.

“They historically have done that,” Roush said. “Carl is the latest indication of that. He’s had very little experience with these cars and has moved right in and taken right over — much like Greg did and like Kurt Busch did before.

“I guess Mark Martin was the daddy of it, but we’ve got a culture of being pragmatic and looking at what’s in front of us and thinking about the things that we need to do — and that’s just the way we live, and the guys do very well.”

Biffle summed up the prevailing feeling among the Roush drivers.

“Man, I just feel so lucky to be able to be where I’m at driving these race cars and being able to win these races,” he said. “I just feel pretty special about it.”