Jack Roush, the winningest owner in NASCAR history, still loves being at the track, particularly at Michigan International Speedway, where he’s hosting clients and employees this weekend in a private suite overlooking pit lane.

The Northville native spoke to Detroit Free Press sports writer George Sipple on Saturday about the improvements made by his Roush-Fenway Racing drivers compared to 2016, how much longer he’ll be involved in NASCAR and his place in automotive history. The interview comes ahead of Sunday’s Monster Energy Cup Series race at MIS:

On his future as a NASCAR owner: “I’m 75 years old. I get up maybe with not quite as much as energy as I had the day before. Certainly it seems that it is weighing heavier on me in my 70s than it was in my 60s or my 50s. I just don’t know how long I can operate, can keep making a contribution to the team, in the place of someone else that might have the role of being the supreme leader. 

On still having a passion to be at the track: “I enjoy race weekend. I enjoy moments like this when I have a chance to talk about the teams and the drivers. I don’t know what I would do beside watch racing if I wasn’t here to be a part of it. 

“Still love it. My health is reasonable for my age I think I can keep going for a while. Whether it is three years, five years or 10 years, I can’t say. We’ll just see what the future brings for me.”

On his plans to retire: “No exit strategy in mind … . I don’t have a plan in three years to not be doing what I’m doing today.” 

On being inducted in to the Automotive Hall of Fame in July: “It’s a very humbling experience to have myself considered to be one of the guys that’s included along with 800 other folks worldwide that have made significant contributions to the automobile industry worldwide. That Hall of Fame has been around since 1939. To be considered as one of the guys that made a meaningful impact on the industry is a great honor.”

On winning more than any other owner in NASCAR history: “That also is a humbling thing. I’ve ridden on the back of giants. 

“I’ve been surrounded by great people and as a team we’ve won more races, I guess, than anybody else in NASCAR. In total, I’ve won over 500 national events in my drag racing decade and my 15 or 16 years of road racing. This is my 31st year in NASCAR. So we’ve had a lot of time to amass the victories and we’ve had a lot of great people that brought their energy and commitments to the teams to make that possible.”

On future goals: “I have a goal to see that everybody that’s on the team has a chance to win a race and every driver has a chance to win a championship.”

On sharing the race weekend with Roush employees at MIS: “We’ve got hospitality units here. We’ve got more employees and more customers that come to this racetrack, this race and the fall race, than anyplace else we go. It is home for us. It’s a chance to showcase our technologies and our competitive spirit to the people that support us in the engineering company in Michigan and the customers that will come to visit with us.”

On favorite memories at MIS: “On the 100th anniversary of Ford Motor Company as a manufacturer, we won the a race here in that year with Greg Biffle. That was a great honor. Very proud of that. And we also won the 1000th race for Ford Motor Company in NASCAR at this racetrack. So not only has this racetrack been the place where we’ve won the most races of all the racetracks we go to, it’s also been a place we’ve won the biggest races I think that are important to Ford.” 

On Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Trevor Bayne having better results this season than 2016:  “We’re getting on track. We had some management change … got a little better understanding of what we need to do with our engineering and with our preparations. The fact that there’s so little on-track testing makes it important to use your engineering resources. Ford gives us a big toolbox with a simulation that works and a lot of things that are useful to us.

“Ford gave us that help in 2016, but we just weren’t able to simulate the tools and get the most out of our effort. I guess organizationally we’ve got the third-highest finish amongst the other multiple-car teams and 40% ahead on top-15 finishes of where we were last year. Put that with the domination race that Ricky Stenhouse had at Talladega. He qualified from the pole and ran up front whenever he wanted to and was able to hold them off at the end of the race. We’re on track to have our best year in the last three or four and I’m anxious to see what we can do to getting Trevor Bayne in for a championship run as well.”

On progress made by Stenhouse Jr.: “This is his first year with crew chief Brian Pattie. Brian is used to having his cars run up front and he’s a little impatient with him in some ways.  They’re putting better setups in the car to make better decisions in the race for things that could be improvements as conditions change. (Pattie) has encouraged him to communicate better.”

On what he wants to see from Bayne the rest of the season: “I think Trevor is going to have to win a race to make the Chase. We’re especially interested in taking back to Daytona.  He’s really good at Daytona and our cars have great speed there. We understand what to do with the restrictor cars, maybe better than we do some of the other tracks. So we’re anxious to see what we can do with him at Daytona.”

On if he thought Bayne would have had more success by now: “I would have. Trevor has been a challenge to figure out what we could do to improve his car. NASCAR cars, as race cars go, are not very sophisticated. … For every oval track lap that a car makes, it probably does four things that brings the drivers’ eyes to tears. Two or three of them you can fix and one or two you can’t. Sometimes, I think Trevor has been challenged by figuring out which things he can he fix and which things he can’t. But he has demonstrated when we get a car that’s right for him he will race a car with as much enthusiasm as anybody else does.” 

On recently receiving his liquid grey 2017 Ford GT:  “We did the calibration and assembled the engines for the cars they’re going to sell to the public and I got car No.15. 

“I figured it’d be a shame not to buy one since I had an excuse because of our involvement. It’s a nice car. We got it wrapped. I’ve not driven it yet … . The value of it and the history of it, I’m just going to keep it to show as part of our collection.”

Contact George Sipple: gsipple@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @georgesipple.