Greg Biffle Kansas II post-qualifying interview

Greg Biffle, No. 16 3M Sherwin Williams Ford (Qualified 1st)

TALK ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING LAP OUT THERE. “Well, it was a really good lap. I think what I really would rather talk about is how slow we were when we unloaded off the truck. It was quite amazing. We were 35th or 37th when we unloaded off the truck today. Fifteen or 20 guys in race trim were way faster than we were. I think that says something about the team. How we started there and ended up where we are at right now. How we worked on the car and didn’t lose our patience, confidence and focus on getting the car to go. We made about six qualifying runs and the last one was pretty dang good and they changed a bunch more stuff on it for the real one. The car was really good. I drove down to one and two and the car stuck to the bottom well. You always feel like you could have went to the gas earlier but you never know. It is that time that you do and you have to come off the gas because it got too loose or tight. It was a really good lap. The car stuck to the race track really good.”

Greg Biffle, Roush Fenway Racing Ford

Photo by: Ashley Dickerson, ASP Inc.

YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN CLOSE TO BREAKING THROUGH SINCE YOU TEAMED UP WITH MATT. IF YOU HAD TO PICK A PLACE IN THE LAST STRETCH, IS THIS THE ONE YOU WOULD PICK AS THE BEST POSSIBILITY FOR A WIN? “I would have picked a lot of them. I thought Michigan, Chicago, Dover, all of those I thought were places that we could have won at. Unfortunately the two speedway races, Michigan and Chicago, we had items break on the race car. That took us out of contention. We had okay finishes but I think here back in the saddle again. This is a mile-and-a-half and our cars are fast and run good on those. I have some wins here and this is obviously a place that we are very capable of winning. I feel the same way about Texas and Phoenix, Charlotte and Homestead. I feel like those are race tracks we can definitely win at. We could win at all of them or none of them. We just have to wait and see.”

WHAT IS THE KEY TO COMPLETING THE WHOLE RACE HERE? “Not having any issues, whether it be in the pits or me spinning out on the race track or something breaking on the race car. We did that at Loudon and nothing happened. We had a great race and pit stops were good. The worst we ran was sixth all day. We were on our way to have that kind of finish at Dover and I missed pit road and ran over the commitment line which I didn’t see. That kind of set off a little bit of a chain of events where we lost some track position and had a bad pit stop at the end of the day. I was frustrated and over driving the car because I knew we had 25 laps to go and I was eighth and was fourth a minute ago. I spun out. If we come in here and have regular pit stops I think we will be right there.”

YOU ARE THE DEFENDING WINNER OF THIS RACE. IS THAT MOTIVATION FOR YOU? “Yeah. It certainly is. There is one thing you can do when you don’t make the Chase and that is win races. They are not going to talk about you if you finish second, third, fourth or fifth. If you win, they are forced to talk about you when you aren’t in the Chase. We know we need to do that and need to win races. We are capable of winning races and have proved it time and time again. We are certainly capable of winning at this level and at these mile-and-a-half race tracks. We felt that way going into Chicago and had problems and we felt that way going into Dover and I messed that one up singlehandedly. So here we are with a fast car and ready for Sunday.”

CARL IS NEXT TO YOU, YOUR TEAMMATE WHO IS TIED FOR THE CHASE LEAD. DO YOU LET HIM HAVE THE FIRST LAP? “I don’t think the first lap is going to be a lap that I would let him lead but I may not have that opportunity. He may be faster than me on the start of the race. You just never know. If it comes down to him needing to lead a lap at some point in the race for a point and we had a little room on the rest of the field then certainly I would do it for any of my teammates when it comes down to that. Carl is going to have a fast car. I don’t think it will be an issue with him leading a lap.”

THREE ROUSH CARS IN THE TOP FOUR. ARE YOU THE TEAM TO BEAT? “You know what, if you look back we have been pretty dang strong on all the mile-and-a-half and two mile tracks as an organization. We are sorta labeled as that. I think the media has labeled us as the mile-and-a-half or two-mile organization you have to contend with. Whether it is me, Matt, Carl or David, one of us is typically running well on the mile-and-a-half’s. I think we are going to be, definitely the three of us, hard to beat. At least I would like to think.

WHAT DID YOU GUYS DO TO GET FROM WHERE YOU UNLOADED TO THE FASTEST QUALIFYING LAP? “That is a great question. I will have to go get Matt Puccia for you because he was the guy. Him and Ben and Tim our engineers and Will and all the guys working on the race car. They are the ones that did it. I unloaded off the truck and tried to make a lap and I said we were in big trouble. We went from there to being the fastest car. It wasn’t in one run. The next run we got a little better, the next run wasn’t bad but needed more. The next run I was a little frustrated because we put tires on at that point and I only ran a 49 which put me up to 15th or so. That hurts because guys are running flats and teens and 10’s or whatever. I knew we were still four-tenths of a second off of being up there. At that point I am in defense mode. I am going, ‘If we get another tenth out of it we can be in the top-10’. We finished the session 12th or something like that. Never would have guessed that we would be on the pole. They went back and looked at the data and worked on it. I have to pat myself on the back a little bit because I must have drove a pretty good lap in order to get it up there but they did a lot of work and really studied it. That says a lot for our team and a lot for Matt. That is what a championship team is made of, someone that can make something out of nothing. That is what we did today. We started out without very much and we are on the pole here getting ready for Sunday’s race.”