NASCAR BGN: Biffle's rookie year taking shape after second win of the season

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

May 23, 2001

Greg Biffle captured his second Busch Series win of the season last weekend at Nazareth Speedway in the Nazareth 200. With that win, Biffle became the second, two-time winner this season, and moved into third place in the Busch Series point standings, 145 points out of first. However, Biffle will face one of his toughest challenges of the season at this weekend's CarQuest 300 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Biffle and his crew chief Randy Goss will go to Charlotte this weekend having never tested or raced at the 1.5-mile speedway. Biffle and Goss spoke of the challenge and the early-season success of their Roush Racing team.

GREG BIFFLE-60-Grainger Ford Taurus - OVER THE PAST TWO WEEKS DRIVERS HAVE STATED THE SERIES IS RACING ON ONE-GROOVE TRACKS. HAS TRAFFIC BEEN A PROBLEM LATELY AND DID THAT PLAY INTO YOUR FAVOR AT NAZARETH? "It certainly has, especially at Nazareth. I think we had a really good car, and obviously we showed that at the end, but we couldn't really do a lot. We couldn't get by the 57, and we knew that we had a better than him on that day. We could close down a half of a straightaway with nobody in front of him. We could catch him in two laps and be on his bumper, and that's significantly faster, but once I got to him I couldn't do anything. That's when I told Randy (Goss), I think that if I can get out front, I think we'll be good. That was a major factor in our pit strategy. The other tracks are a little bit easier to pass at. Richmond and Loudon are a little bit easier to pass, if your car is right. Our car obviously wasn't very good and we paid for it at those two races. We figured it out at Nazareth. We went back over our test notes from Milwaukee and focused on what we needed to do."

YOU PASSED ON THE CHARLOTTE TEST TO TEST AT MILWAUKEE. YOU'VE NEVER RACED AT CHARLOTTE BEFORE. IN HINDSIGHT, WAS THAT STILL THE RIGHT THING TO DO? "Not going to Charlotte wasn't a good move, especially since I haven't raced there before. I have only 60 laps in a car there, and that was driving at about 60 percent speed doing a radiator test for Burton last year with the other engine. They didn't want me to push the envelope in terms of lap times and all that, so it may hurt us not having tested here, but hopefully we'll catch on quick. Mark (Martin) has run well here in the past and so has (Jeff) Burton, and he tested here in both his Busch and Cup cars two weeks ago. We're going to start with his baseline setup and work from there. I don't think we're going to be real, real far off; it may pose a problem on long runs and knowing some of the adjustments."

WILL HAVING JEFF BURTON THERE IN HIS BUSCH CAR THIS WEEKEND CLOSE THAT DEFICIT? "Absolutely. And, having Mark and Matt (Kenseth) there will be a big advantage, as well. That can change our outcome considerably. Mark helped me a bunch at Atlanta, and Burton will definitely point us in the right direction."

YOU WERE THE ONLY DRIVER TO CLOSE THE GAP TO FIRST PLACE IN THE POINTS THIS WEEKEND. DO YOU HAVE THE MOMENTUM ON YOUR SIDE? "It really is. It does a lot for us in terms of momentum, especially after the two weeks we had prior. If we had a tough run at Nazareth, we'd be dragging our feet this week; it would be terrible. That wasn't the case, and I feel really good right now and I think that we proved again that we have a championship-caliber team. Whether we can get the job done this year is yet to be seen, but we have the potential to get it done."

YOU'VE HAD YOUR FAIR SHARE OF BAD LUCK THIS SEASON, BUT KEVIN HARVICK HAS BEEN, FOR THE MOST PART, RUNNING AT THE END OF RACES. DOES THAT REFLECT IN THE WAY YOU LOOK AT THE CURRENT POINT STANDINGS? "Out a 140 points, that's not too bad considering our finishes at Richmond and Bristol. We're not wishing bad luck on any one, but we hope that we will have our break somewhere, where we will have a good run going and he (Harvick) finishes in the 10th spot. That will pick us up 40 or 50 points in the standings and help to make up that deficit. We hope that we'll get a break somewhere, allowing us to get caught up."

DO YOU THINK PULLING DOUBLE DUTY WILL START TO WEAR ON KEVIN HARVICK AS THE SUMMER MONTHS PASS? "It may have a little effect on him, but as long as we're racing the next day and not the same day, I think he will probably be OK. Really, if you rest and get enough liquids, you should be fine. The races aren't real early in the morning, so I think he'll be OK. If he could race both races at Bristol, I don't care how hot it is, that's a tough racetrack. It takes mega-concentration, and that track is hard on a body, but we're not waiting on him to make a mistake. We need to keep charging. If he does fall down, we're going to be there. If he stumbles, we're taking advantage of it."

HAS THE RIVALRY BETWEEN THE TWO OF YOU BEEN BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION? "A little bit, but everybody is looking for a story, so I let it go at that and let everyone make their own opinion on that versus doing anything. It's hard to go head-to-head with a person who is a superstar in the media's eyes right now. I think that table is turning a little bit because of the things he's doing and saying, and maybe some of the things he's not doing, as far as media goes. You need to be careful, though. I want to be careful how I approach the rivalry, but it does make for a good show."

YOU ARE THE FIRST BUSCH SERIES REGULAR TO POST TWO WINS THIS SEASON. DID YOU THINK THAT WOULD HAPPEN? "I knew that we would be good, but to be a multiple winner so early, I don't think so. One part of me thought that we'd be able to win a couple of races this year. I looked at how Harvick and Hornaday ran in the Truck Series and realized that those guys came over and won two races. I thought we'd at least be able to do that based upon the equipment and support we have. I'm really surprised that we've won two so early in the season. I didn't think that we'd be the first full-time team to win two races. I know (Todd) Bodine did, but he's not running as a regular. It's pretty exciting to be in that position."

YOUR TWO BUSCH WINS CAME AT TRACKS WHERE THE WINSTON CUP SERIES DOESN'T COMPETE. "You have to remember, I haven't been to all of these places before, and the only way that I'm going to get experience is racing the Winston Cup cars there. I've never been to Charlotte before, but I almost won at Atlanta, and that was the first time that I saw the place. I ran third at Rockingham, and started on the pole, so that's not a terrible run. I was second at Vegas and the Cup cars run there, so we've had some good runs at Cup racetracks as well. I don't have a lot of experience at the Cup tracks because the Truck Series never ran there. I can't be criticized for not having the experience or skill at those race tracks yet, but the only way that I'm going to get it is to race there."

IS THE TRUCK SERIES STILL A GOOD TRAINING GROUND FOR YOUNG DRIVERS? "I think the Truck Series is a huge training ground. It's competitive. I think it's essential in somebody's career. You learn a lot about car control, racing and pit stops. It's a little bit easier to achieve a top-10 finish in that series, and a guy needs that confidence where you can get a top-10 finish, top-five finish, win some races and develop your skills to come to the Busch Series. I'm not saying that a person can't start in the Busch Series, but the trucks are still a great proving ground. People thought that it was a fluke if a driver came out of that series. Ted Musgrave went off and won a bunch of races right off the bat, but look where he's been the last couple of weeks. He was a lap down at Darlington, he knows that track, and finished fourth at Pikes Peak. (Jack) Sprague, Ricky Hendrick, Joe Ruttman and Scott Riggs are all great drivers. It's a good series."

LOOKING AHEAD TO CHARLOTTE, IS IT EASIER TO MOTIVATE YOUR GUYS THIS WEEK BEING SO CLOSE TO HOME? "Yeah, but after last week we don't need any more motivation. That win has done a lot for us. My fab guy (fabricator) was calling me from home as we were heading to the airport after the race, and those guys are really excited. I had to pay them back for tearing up some of my equipment early in the year. We have all the momentum we need, we just need to get over to that racetrack and focus on it and do the best we can. We're not going into this race saying that we can win the thing, I'm not. I think we can run in the top five and that's what we need to do there. If Kevin Harvick wins and Jeff Green finishes second, as long as we're in the top five, we're not going to get hurt. Yeah, they may gain 20 points on us, but we need to learn, we need our notebook to get bigger, so that the next time we go there, we're going to be the guy to beat."

WHAT CAR DO YOU TAKE TO CHARLOTTE? "We're taking our Texas, California, Atlanta car. It's good car and almost took us to Victory Lane at Atlanta."

RANDY GOSS, Crew Chief-60-Grainger Ford Taurus - DID YOU THINK SUCCESS FOR THIS TEAM WOULD COME SO EARLY? "Not really. I knew that it was going to be a struggle, and I didn't think that we would get to the point where we could win this early in the season. There are a lot of new guys that we brought in during the off-season to field this team, so it's not like we picked up where Mark Martin left off. It takes a lot more people to run a full-time deal than it does for a partial schedule. The only other person that moved with us from Michigan was Kevin Starland (car chief), so for Greg, it was like working for a whole new team. That takes time, but he's done a great job getting acclimated."

DID YOU FEEL PRESSURE GOING INTO THIS SEASON AFTER YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON IN THE TRUCK SERIES LAST YEAR? "The biggest pressure we've had this year was missing our setup at Richmond and Loudon and getting off our game a little bit. That makes anybody, no matter how many races they've won, start second-guessing themselves and thinking, 'What have I done wrong?' It's easy to go crazy when you get your driver a lap down when the setup is off."

IS THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SETUPS IN THE CARS AND TRUCKS? "If you're talking numbers, the Busch cars use stiffer springs than the trucks to get hooked up. Of course, that was last year. Everything has changed so much, it's different this year, but no matter what kind of racing it is, it's all the same. I see a lot of things Busch racing that I saw in motorcycle racing 20 years ago. A lot of the same monkey see, monkey do attitude, following the other guy rather than thinking for yourself. "

WHO DO YOU TURN TO FOR ADVICE? "Well, I call Mark Martin up and talk to him. He was the greatest Busch Series driver ever, and he is one of our teammates. And, of course, we have Jeff Burton helping us in the shop. I try to listen to everybody, the guys running in the front. I try to add up what they're saying and figure out why it's doing that. There seem to be certain things inherent no matter if it's a car or truck."

ARE THESE THINGS SPECIFIC TO THE VEHICLES OR TO THE TRACKS? "I think it's specific to a race track, more than a car. I try to figure out the race track's attributes, the things that happen to the cars or trucks. Once we figure out those attributes, I think it gives us a better handle on what changes we need to make and which changes will have the biggest impact. That all comes with experience. That's why I think we've run better on some tracks that Greg raced on in the trucks. We know the basics attributes of those tracks and can adjust accordingly."

HOW IS THE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN YOU AND GREG? "We're getting better. It's a tough deal because when you start a typical weekend out, there are five roads you can go down. Three of the front runners might go down different roads and be contenders, but if you pick the wrong road, it will be hard to recover from it, the whole weekend."

HAS THE NEW TIRE COMPOUND AND ENGINE PACKAGE HELPED WITH YOUR EARLY SUCCESS, WHERE THIS IS A NEW OBSTACLE FOR ROOKIES AND VETERANS ALIKE? "I think it's helped Greg and our whole deal because he is used to so much power in the trucks. I don't know what it would have been like with the old engine rules. I think it's helped him because you don't have to use the car's momentum when you have the power."

TALK ABOUT YOUR PIT STRATEGY. YOU'RE NOT AFRAID TO TAKE RISKS AND IT PAID OFF LAST WEEKEND. "I don't want any credit for that one because I've screwed up more calls than I've helped this year. Greg was probably to guy to beat at Atlanta and I messed him up there from lack of experience. I just didn't have my head on straight for that race. Now Nazareth, I've been in the same position there in the trucks, so it's closer to our home ground. As a matter of fact, we ran the whole weekend like we were truck racing. We unloaded and we did our race setup and then we went to our qualifying setup, rather than the other way around. And for us, that's closer to what we're used to; we did that for four years."

YOU HEAD TO CHARLOTTE THIS WEEKEND, AND THAT'S A TRACK THAT YOU HAVEN'T EVEN TESTED AT. DOES THAT MAKE IT A TOUGHER WEEKEND? "It makes me a nervous wreck. There aren't even that many guys hitting their setup there in Winston Cup, if you watched the races. The place is really fast and it will bite you in a hurry, so if I miss the setup there's a chance that he's going to wreck because he's going to keep driving it. Hitting the setup is the key. Getting the thing to get in and get around the corner is everything."

WITH THE NEW SPRING RULES, HAVE YOU BEEN FORCED TO CHANGE YOUR THINKING? "It hasn't thrown a crimp into anything that we've done. Every time we've gotten soft enough to where we needed a bump rubber, we couldn't get it to handle anyway. We were missing something, so it's probably helped us."

WAS THIS NECESSARY RULE CHANGE? "I think it was a step in the right direction. From the knowledge that I have now, but I've only been down here a half of a year, from my perspective it was the right thing to do. In the Busch Series, you couldn't run bump rubbers anyway, but if you had that soft of a spring, you could cut the spring rubber and essentially make it into a bump stop. If you stood there long enough, you could cut the spring rubber into enough pieces on the bandsaw to make it a bump stop. I think that's what NASCAR wanted to stop. Now, once a race starts, we can add spring rubbers because no one would have enough time during a pit stop to play around with the spring rubber like have in the garage."

Text provided by Greg Shea

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