September 16, 2010
By Doug Demmons
There is plenty of talk as the Chase opens this weekend at New Hampshire, about the drivers who have a chance to end Jimmie Johnson’s streak at four straight.
Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Kurt Busch are the names mentioned most often. Maybe Jeff Gordon. Maybe Tony Stewart.
But what about Greg Biffle? Why no love for the Biff?
Could Biffle become the first driver to win a Truck Series championship, a Nationwide Series championship and the Cup title?
Sure. Why not.
Biffle certainly thinks so.
“I feel good about our chances for the championship this year,” he said after the race at Richmond. “We have been running good the last nine weeks in our points margin, but not the last couple of weeks. We are feeling good as a company and like Tony (Stewart) said, you are going to have to capitalize at the places you're good at and try and survive the other ones. We have probably seven or eight good race tracks in the Chase for us. We have a few that we will have to keep our head above water on.”
Now, it probably sounds a bit odd for a driver who just finished 32nd and five laps down to be talking about winning the championship.
It was a bizarre night for the Biff, to be sure.
“I was pulling off pit road,” he said about the start of the race, “and my helmet was filled with smoke and something was on fire, so I shut my helmet blower off and proceeded to try and get some air inside the car.”
Smoke in your helmet on the parade laps is a bad omen, indeed. But it got worse.
Courtesy Ford Racing
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Greg Biffle Qualifies For 2010 Chase
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“About halfway through the race, they said, ‘What's the temperature,’ and I said, ‘It's 265.’” Biffle said. “Then we realized there was a hole up underneath the front of the nose of the car that kind of had some debris at some point that knocked a hole in it. The car was tight and we kept freeing it up and we were sliding the nose and not giving it any gas. We took the wave around and when I was coming around to the back of the field, the right front tire was flat so I had to pit when we were coming to the green and then we got penalized because you can't you can't take the wave around and pit before you take the green on the track, so we got penalized for that.”
That’s the sort of night that Dale Earnhardt Jr. was having.
“Other than that, nothing else happened. Pretty straight up night after that,” Biffle said to laughter in the media center.
So why would Biffle be feeling pretty good about the Chase?
Well, he says he has seven or eight out of 10 Chase races where he runs well. And he’s right.
In 2008 he opened the Chase by winning the first two races at Loudon and Dover. He has four top fives at Loudon and seven top fives at Dover, including two wins.
At Kansas, he has one win and an average finish of 9.0.
At Fontana, he has a win and four top fives.
At Texas he has four straight top 10s in the last four races.
At Homestead he won three straight times from 2004 to 2006.
And at Phoenix he has an average finish of 15.4.
His difficult tracks are Charlotte, Martinsville and Talladega.
He has an average finish of 19 at Charlotte and 22.3 at Martinsville.
At Talladega he has five DNFs and an average finish of 22. But Talladega is the great equalizer. It lays low the mighty and lifts up the obscure.
Biffle could get caught up in the Big One and finish 35th. And he could just as easily win at Talladega. He was fourth in the fall race last year.
For Biffle to win it all he’ll have to maximize his edge at Dover and Loudon and Homestead and find a way to improve at Martinsville and Charlotte.
And, of course, the No. 16 team will have to be flawless on pit road.
And they will have to hope that they used up all their bad luck at Richmond.
Doug Demmons is a writer and editor for the Birmingham News ~ he writes daily and weekly auto racing columns ranging from NASCAR to open wheel to Formula One, local tracks and more... you can read Doug's columns online at Blog of Tommorow
Follow Doug on Twitter: @dougdemmons
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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