NASCAR: Roush Fenway down to two Cup cars

Roush Fenway Racing will scale down to a two-car Sprint Cup operation in 2017 with drivers Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

"We have been able to shore up our plans for 2017 and we feel that this will continue to move us in a direction that will yield improved performance and results," Roush Fenway co-owner Jack Roush said. "We saw improvement in our cars and made substantial gains in our performance at times last season, and we will continue to build on that by maintaining a robust engineering group in order to take the next step by consistently running up front."

As part of a reorganization, general manager Robbie Reiser will be reassigned to "a yet to be determined position," the team said in a statement. Kevin Kidd, who has been Roush's team manager and supervisor of all at-track operations for the past two years, will assume the role of competition director. Tommy Wheeler, who oversees the production of the organization's Cup and Xfinity Series cars, will be the team's operations director.

Brian Pattie, Biffle's crew chief last season, will transition to crew chief of the No. 17 team. Nick Sandler, who served as the No. 17 crew chief for the last two seasons, has been named director of engineering. Matt Puccia will return as crew chief of the No. 6 team.

Biffle's departure was announced last week after 14 Sprint Cup seasons; he had a year left on his contract, but the team had yet to line up sponsors for 2017. The three Cup drivers finished 21st (Stenhouse), 22nd (Bayne) and 23rd (Biffle) in the 2016 standings. While Roush Fenway has the most wins in NASCAR history, the team hasn't won in two years. Biffle hadn't won a race since earning Ford's 1,000th NASCAR victory in 2013 at Michigan International Speedway.

In his rookie season, Buescher earned his first win in the rain-shortened August Pocono race, which qualified him for the Chase. He wound up 16th in the driver standings.