Associated Press
Greg Biffle isn’t packing his bags for NASCAR’s postseason just yet.
“It’s definitely not easy cruising to the Chase right now,” he said. “We know that we’re on the envelope of getting in.”
Right now, that envelope is getting pretty crowded.
The top 12 after the Sept. 6 race at Richmond make the Chase, and Biffle slipped from eighth to 10th in points after finishing 21st in last week’s race at Watkins Glen. While he remains 83 points clear of 13th-place Clint Bowyer, Biffle knows any slip-up could cost him a chance to compete for the Sprint Cup title.
“We’re in that eighth-through-13th class that’s going to fight right down to Richmond unless one of us breaks out, gets a win, a couple of top-fives and locks ourselves in the next two races,” he said.
Biffle may be the best bet to break through. He’s won four times at Michigan’s two-mile oval during his racing career, including twice in the Sprint Cup. It helps that he’s on a team that’s dominated the track over the years. Roush Fenway Racing has 10 Cup victories Michigan, second only to the Wood Brothers’ total of 11.
“We’ve had a legacy of having really fast cars, I think, of having generally pretty good engines and better-than-average luck there,” team owner Jack Roush said.
A little bit of racing luck never hurts, something the Roush Fenway cars have managed to find in bunches at Michigan. Maybe the home cooking helps. Roush Industries has offices in the area, and the boss sets up two hospitality tents for the Sprint races.
Whatever the reason, trips to victory lane have become commonplace for Roush Fenway cars over the years at the track whose banking makes for wide-open racing. Biffle sure seems to like it. He won at Michigan the first time he raced there in the Craftsman Truck Series, and has six top-10s there as a Sprint Cup driver.
“The thing I love about Michigan is you can race as hard as you want,” Biffle said. “You can go two-and-three wide on that downforce racetrack for the win and be able to do that in a cautious manner where you’re going to get a good finish.”
A good finish eluded Biffle during the series’ first visit to the track this season, when he was 20th in a race won by Dale Earnhardt Jr., a rare off day for a team that’s had few of them at the home of Ford.