Race car owner lives his dream in restored P-51

Jack Roush can't seem to get World War II out of his system.

Like many kids of his generation, Roush was fascinated by the machines of war. His father served on a battleship in the South Pacific, and Roush built model airplanes growing up in Manchester, Ohio.

Eventually, models gave way to the real thing. Six years ago, NASCAR's top car owner spent $500,000 to buy and lovingly restore a North American P-51, one of the greatest U.S. fighter planes.

Don't worry, the 57-year-old Roush can afford it.

In addition to owning five Winston Cup teams and others spread throughout NASCAR, he is CEO of Roush Industries Inc., an engineering and prototype development company serving the automotive and transportation industries.

The company, headquartered in Livonia, Mich., employs more than 1,350 people in five states, Mexico and England.

But that's business. Airplanes - especially piloting them - are his true love.

"Back in grade school, I was a kid that was interested in World War II stuff and all the things that were involved with it," Roush said. "I would find myself in study halls and quiet periods doodling airplanes and ships and things, and thinking about combat situations I'd seen in movies or heard my dad talk about."

By the time he was in high school, Roush had a keen interest in attending the Air Force Academy. But that required an appointment from a senator or representative, and Roush wasn't politically connected.

"I didn't get that done, and I was a little early for Vietnam," he said.

Instead, he headed for Kentucky, where he enrolled at Berea College and earned a degree in mathematics and physics. Ford Motor Co. offered him a job, but Roush still had a yearning for aviation.

So, he gave the military one more shot.

"After I graduated from college, I went through a two-day physical and written exam for the Air Force to become a flight officer," he said. "But they wanted me to be a navigator, in the back seat of an F-4. If I was going to be in an F-4, I wanted to be up front."

Instead, he took the offer from Ford and became involved in racing.

As he was coming to the fore in motorsports, the Air Force had a change of heart about dismissing Roush as pilot material, and for a while attempted to recruit him.

"I remember that when I had my 28th birthday, the Air Force stopped notifying me once a year that they had a class that I could get into and ride in the front seat, if I wanted to," Roush said.

Today, Roush is nothing but a front-seat guy. In addition to the P-51, he also flies the corporate jet, a Cessna Citation 525. He keeps both at Willow Run Airport near Detroit.

But it's the old warbird he cranks up whenever conditions permit. Some folks own classic cars. Roush wanted a warplane.

When he's alone in the P-51, he is somehow a kid again.

"Euphoric youthfulness," is how Roush describes it.

"As long as you can fly a P-51, I don't think you'd ever feel old in one. It's a wonderful thing."

He has to wear an oxygen mask in the unpressurized plane, which climbs to 25,000 feet. And it's not good for night flying. Still, there is nowhere he won't fly it when he can.

He sometimes flies it to NASCAR races - where he takes people for rides - and the plane appears frequently in air shows.

One of those who has been a Roush passenger is his top driver, Mark Martin. He gives his boss high marks.

"He's a very smooth pilot," Martin said. "He must be good going through the maneuvers, or else I would have been really scared or really sick."

Roush never considers such things himself.

"I like everything about it," he said. "You wear it like you'd wear a race car. It has a unique smell. It has a unique feel. It has a unique sound. And it's incredibly agile."

In restoring the plane, Roush decided to make it a replica of "Old Crow," the P-51 that Col. Jim Anderson flew while shooting down 18 German aircraft over western Europe. In the process, Roush and Anderson, now in his mid-70s, have become friends.

Roush frequently lets Anderson fly the plane in air shows, where he sometimes has Chuck Yeager on his wing. Yeager, who went on to become the country's most famous test pilot, was a young aviator in Anderson's outfit during the war.

As he talks, it almost sounds as if Roush regrets not having been a military pilot. But he says that's not so.

"If I'd stayed in the Air Force, I don't know that I'd have been able to reach the level of financial independence that would allow me to have an airplane at this time in my life," he said.

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