Jack Roush was talking animatedly about his favorite subject: auto racing.

The NASCAR team owner hunched forward in his chair, furrowing his brow as he made a point. Sitting in the rear of driver Mark Martin's hauler at Phoenix International Raceway last weekend, Roush felt right at home.

	Jack Roush already has won a Busch title this year, and he has a slim chance at a Winston Cup crown, too.

"I'm just Joe Racer,'' he said, sitting back and letting a grin spread over his weathered face.

The 60-year-old Roush, who fields cars in Winston Cup, the Busch Series and NASCAR's truck series, is even more charged up than usual as the season comes to an end Sunday with the Miami 400 in Homestead, Fla.

Greg Biffle already has given him the Busch championship, and Martin, the driver who has been with him since Roush started his NASCAR team in 1988, goes into Sunday's season finale in Homestead, Fla., with a chance -- though slim -- to overtake Tony Stewart for the title.

All four of his Cup drivers are in the top 12 in the season points and have combined to give their boss nine victories -- a terrific season by any measure, especially after a disheartening 2001.

Beyond that, Roush is just feeling lucky to be alive these days.

The head of Roush Industries, an engineering and prototype development company employing more than 1,700 people _ independent of Roush Racing -- survived the crash of a small experimental aircraft into an Alabama lake while visiting friends on his birthday, April 19.

"I didn't see a telephone wire and it flipped me into the lake,'' said Roush, a longtime pilot. "I drowned, but a real hero, Larry Hicks, dived into the water and brought me back.''

Hicks, a retired Marine and a former instructor of underwater rescue, just happened to be fishing from the dock behind his home when the plane hit the water upside down. He pulled Roush out of the water and onto the wing of the plane before getting him breathing again.

Roush came away with a head injury and multiple fractures to his left leg.

"Larry's a friend for life now, as you might guess,'' he said.

Roush, an intense man used to getting his way, has made a remarkable recovery. He walks with only the barest hint of a limp and, except for a titanium rod in his thigh and some metal plates and screws in his ankle and foot, there's not much to physically remind him of that frightening day.

Mentally, it's a different story.

"The accident did change me, but not what you think,'' Roush said.

After spending 12 days in the University of Alabama Medical Center in Birmingham, Roush was flown to the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor to begin physical therapy.

Working alongside him were two young men with spinal injuries that left them paraplegics and a young women who had lost both of her feet and her hands.

"It was my 60th birthday when I went into the water in Troy, Ala., and if I could have given those young men back their legs at 24 years old, and that young woman her hands and feet back, they could have left me in the water,'' Roush said, his voice cracking with emotion.

"I never had that feeling before in my life. That's given me a better appreciation for how lucky I've been for all the accidents that I've missed. I'm 60 years old and I never had a broken bone before.''

	“	Roush Racing is a combination of all the drivers and all the crew chiefs and all the car chiefs and all the mechanics and all the engine builders and all the fabricators and all the pit guys and all the truck drivers. That's what it is. It isn't Jack. ”
		— Roush

Roush said he never worried about how his company was being run in his absence. Mostly, he just wanted to get back to the racetrack.

"Racing is about 25 percent of the company,'' Roush said. "I've got a management team in place that runs the engineering business. They call me in occasionally when they need me for some sales or strategic meeting of consequence with a customer or supplier. I'll be called in to provide the necessary commitment for the company if they think they need it at my level.

"Except for that, I'm embroiled in racing. I go to bed thinking about my race cars and my problems and I wake up thinking about my race cars and my problems. It's only when they stop me that they get my attention on the rest of these things.''

Rick Hendrick, owner of a NASCAR team with five Winston Cup championships to its credit, said he admires Roush and hopes he soon gets the Cup title that has eluded him so long.

"He lives and breathes the performance side of automobiles,'' Hendrick said. "He's put together some awfully good teams over the years and it just seems like he gets right to the finish line and something breaks on him or something happens.

"Usually, when a guy like that starts winning, you can't stop him. That's probably not good news for the rest of us because he's got all his teams running really good.''

The two owners share something else, as well. Hendrick survived a life-threatening battle with a rare form of leukemia in 1996 and 1997.

"I think his accident actually may have helped him, or will help him down the road, in his life and his career,'' Hendrick said. "He and I talked about having life-threatening experiences and what that means. We had a really nice conversation one day about life in general, not just racing.

"I think, sometimes, when you find a little bit of that balance where you think of other things that are pretty important to you, it seems like the performance side gets better because you're not so intense. ... All of a sudden, something that would cause you to just want to go nuts because it didn't happen like you wanted it to on the track, you think, 'Hey, that isn't life-threatening.'' It makes you be able to go back and adjust on it without tearing it all to pieces.''

However Roush goes about his business these days, it works for his drivers.

"I honestly have to say that every time I've asked Jack for something -- and it works this way for everybody on the team -- if we need something and we have a good case to support it and it's something reasonable, he gives it to us,'' said Matt Kenseth, who won Sunday in Phoenix and leads the series with five victories this season.

"It doesn't matter how much it costs or how hard it is to get it. He gives us whatever we need to race, and that's my favorite thing about Roush Racing.''

"Joe Racer'' loves that thought because few things mean as much to him as the teamwork he has generated as his racing operation has grown.

"Roush Racing is a combination of all the drivers and all the crew chiefs and all the car chiefs and all the mechanics and all the engine builders and all the fabricators and all the pit guys and all the truck drivers,'' Roush said. "That's what it is. It isn't Jack.''