BROOKLYN, Mich. -- Jack Roush doesn't really want to talk about the strong possibility of Roush Racing finally giving the team owner his first Winston Cup championship in 16 years of trying.

He has been oh-so-close before, only to see the title snatched away by bad luck or circumstances.

Last year, Roush driver Mark Martin battled Tony Stewart to the end, but came up 38 points short. It would have been even closer if Martin had not been docked 25 championship points by NASCAR late in the season for a technical violation on his No. 6 Ford.

Martin has been with Roush since the Michigan native first brought a team to NASCAR's top stock car series in 1988. He has finished second four times, including losing to Dale Earnhardt in 1990 by just 26 points.

	Kenseth, left, could win a title with Roush this season.

Now, going into Sunday's GFS Marketplace 400 at Michigan International Speedway, Matt Kenseth -- one of five Roush Winston Cup entries this season -- is a whopping 258 points ahead of runner-up Dale Earnhardt Jr. after 22 of 36 races.

Nobody has ever blown a lead that big this late in the NASCAR season.

"I will be honored and I'll be relieved it if happens for Matt this year because I'll feel like whatever bad karma or whatever bad luck I brought on people that were clearly able to (win a championship) had ended," said the team owner, an entrepreneur whose Roush Industries is headquartered in nearby Livonia, Mich.

Roush, an avid pilot who last year survived the crash of an one-man experimental aircraft, acknowledges he has plenty to be thankful for. But he still feels cheated out of at least one championship _ and maybe one or two more.

"Mark Martin has been of a caliber and certainly been in a position to have won a number of championships," Roush said. "Last year, he was leading the championship in September and NASCAR gave Chevrolets and Pontiacs an inch of nose extension that dramatically improved their cars from an aerodynamic point of view.

"That upset the balance of competition and, if there wasn't already an advantage for the Pontiacs and the Chevrolets, it was certainly shifted that way. And Tony (driving a Pontiac) was able to come back and amass more points from September through November and Mark finished second. That's not the first time it's happened, either."

It is something of a surprise that it is Kenseth who is perhaps on the verge of giving Roush a championship.

Martin was supposed to contend again this year, but has had a mediocre season and is 15th in the points.

Kurt Busch, the hottest driver at the end of last season, winning three of the last five races, was a favorite going into 2003. He has won three times this year, including the June race at the Michigan track. But Busch is a distant eighth in the standings, thanks to mechanical problems and crashes.

Roush's other Cup drivers, Jeff Burton and rookie Greg Biffle, are 13th and 22nd in the points, respectively. But Burton, who fell to 10th and 12th in the points the last two years, appears to have turned around his season in the last two months. And Biffle is the top rookie of 2003 and gained his first Winston Cup win last month in Daytona.

"On a good day I've got four losers and I find that I spend more of my time working on the things gone wrong and agonizing over the missed opportunities than I do celebrating the things gone right," Roush said. "So it has not been a year that is that much different from any other year."

Except this one may end with Roush winning a championship.