GREG BIFFLE – 3M Ford Fusion – IN TERMS OF TRYING TO MAKE THE CHASE, HOW IMPORTANT IS TOMORROW NIGHT’S RACE? “It’s really important. None of them are any more important than the others, but we obviously know that Bristol can be one of the race tracks where it can catch up some cars and chain-reaction accidents, things like that. We’ve always run fairly well here, near the top 10 every time we’ve been here. Unfortunately, in the spring here, we had an engine failure, which is really weird. Not a lot of people have engine trouble at Bristol, but we did. But we’re confident that, obviously, we’ve got that problem fixed. It was a part issue that we had early in the season with all of the cars. But, I like the race track. I like my opportunity here this weekend, and I really look foreward to this one and a couple more. I know it’s all tight right there. We’ve been talking about it for weeks, and all we can do is do the best we can every week. Running out of gas hurt last week. You know, ran out of gas last week, ironically enough, I made it about 600 feet further, I think, than the first race. So, I was happy about that. A few more races and maybe we’ll make it all the way back around to the line. But the difference, I guess, I was running 12th when I ran out instead of leading.”
WITH SO MANY DRIVERS SO CLOSE TO MAKING, OR NOT MAKING, THE CHASE, DO YOU PAY MORE ATTENTION TO WHAT OTHER DRIVERS ARE DOING, LESS ATTENTION, OR DO YOU JUST STAY FOCUSED ON YOUR OWN DEAL? “We’ve watched what the other guys are doing, but we’ve really stayed focused on our deal. We do the best we can. Like right now, especially, getting our car going. That’s the most important – qualifying good and having a good race. But, certainly, we keep an eye on how’s Ryan Newman running, how’s Mark Martin running, how’s Kyle Busch running? We look at them on the speed chart, we look at them after qualifying. But we don’t consume ourselves with what they’re doing. And, this is recent, we’ve started thinking at Watkins Glen and Michigan about staying on the same pit sequence or cycle as those guys, and just beat them on performance, or out-race them. Because if they can pull some strategy and sort of leapfrog you, that could hurt you. But, if you’re on the same strategy, you’re either going to be bad together or be good together, so sometimes that’s come into our thought process, but that situation hasn’t really arisen yet, where it’s something dramatically different from what everybody’s doing. So, those are the kinds of things that you pay attention to. But, when they start breaking up, then you’ve got to choose something.”
EARLIER THIS YEAR A TOYOTA OFFICIAL SAID THAT IF ONE OR TWO OF HIS TEAMS WERE CONTENDING FOR A SPOT IN THE CHASE, TOYOTA WOULD DO EVERYTHING IT COULD TO HELP PROVIDE THE RESEARCH AND HELP GET THEM INTO THE CHASE. WHAT CAN FORD DO OR WHAT HAS FORD DONE FOR YOUR TEAM? AND WHAT CAN A MANUFACTURER DO WITH ONLY THREE RACES BEFORE THE CHASE? “We kind of do that internally, Ford certainly helps us along, but if it’s moving personnel around, making sure that you’ve got the best guys at the shop, you’re most prepared, you’ve got the best crew guys – so the manufacturer can help just by putting resources around that team. Can you do this? Can you do that? Sometimes it makes it easier for somebody to make a decision to change a guy out even, you’ve got somebody else to blame it on, so to speak, when you’re trying to make your core stronger. That support helps and that depth of engineering or whatever they can do. They can’t do anything out of the ordinary, because, of course, they’d be doing that already, you know, to make you run better all of the time. It’s just the small things that can try and do to try and make that as solid as you can.”
DID YOU MAKE ANY CHANGES? “Yeah, we’ve had one personnel change in Chicago. Our catch-can guy had knee surgery and we were borrowing a guy that dropped the catch can on two stops and got us a lap penalty on the second time around, and really took us out of a decent finish at Chicago. It was a disaster. It was a mistake on our part, originally, probably we didn’t do enough research when we got a guy to fill in.”
LAST WEEK, DALE EARNHARDT JR. TALKED ABOUT HIS FRUSTRATIONS WITH THIS CAR. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE DONE THAT WOULDN’T BE A HIGH FINANCIAL FIX? “We talked about that in that get-together. In that meeting we talked about some stuff, and I don’t know how far they’ve gotten on that. One thing that we all know about: We all race in a circle – it doesn’t take a lot to figure that out – and the more left-side weight, we know the left-side distribution is important in these cars, very important. As racers, we know that. Anything you build, from a go-kart to a quarter midget to a Late Model, anything, left-side weight is very important. It balances the car out. When you go around the corner, centrifugal force or g-force is to the outside. So the more you can stack over here, the better the car handles, typically. I think that’s one of the biggest things that we can do is try and move weight to the left of the car, possible offset some suspension components. Right now our suspension is identical on both sides. Length. It wasn’t before, it doesn’t need to be, it’s not interchangeable side to side, so certainly we could do that. We all build all of those components in-house, so it’s not like we’d be starting from scratch. I think there’s a lot of little things. I don’t think it’s one thing. We’re not going to just, you know, plug something into it and say, ‘It’s perfect now.’ But I think there’s small things we can do along the way that are going to add up over time. And I know that they’re looking at those.”
WHAT CHANGES WOULD YOU MAKE AS YOU GET CLOSER TO THE CHASE? “We’re not going to change anything; we’re going to continue to race like we have. We’re going to do the best we can and try and get good finishes, not take any chances, keep our fenders on the car, and race as hard as we can and get our best finish.”
EIGHT OF THE 23 WINS THIS YEAR HAVE BEEN BY DRIVERS WHO ARE CURRENTLY 12TH-15TH IN THE STANDINGS. MARK MARTIN AND KYLE BUSCH HAVE SEVEN OF THOSE. WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT THE WAY THINGS ARE RIGHT NOW? “That organization is really strong, and they’ve done a good job. There’s a lot of guys right on the bubble about making it that have a lot of wins. You know, it’s weird – it’s kind of like you pass the hot button to each team. One team’s winning races, Carl won nine last year and hasn’t won any, and now this guy’s winning and that guy’s not. It’s weird how it works. We’re all clawing and scratching to figure it out all the time, to try and see what we’re missing. It’s a moving target all the time. We’re throwing darts at something that’s moving back and forth on the wall. Sometimes, you got it perfect, and sometimes you’re off that much and you just never hit it.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO WIN THE NIGHT RACE HERE AT BRISTOL? “I’ve had a blast here the last couple of years, but it really takes a good qualifying effort, it takes a great race car, and a little bit of luck and strategy as well – especially now. The cars are getting closer and closer competitively, as far as speeds. You really need everything to go perfectly to win this race.”
THE DOUBLE-FILE RE-STARTS HAVE BEEN USED FOR A WHILE NOW, BUT THIS WILL BE THE FIRST CHASE TO HAVE THEM. DO YOU EXPECT THAT THEY COULD HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE CHASE? AND, MOVING FORWARD, DO YOU EXPECT THINGS TO BE CALMER OR A LITTLE MORE INTENSE THAN THEY ARE NOW? “Those are good questions. I predict that with one of these double-file re-starts will have a huge impact on the Chase. It’s so chaotic, there’s so much going on – especially when we maybe go to a place like, I’m thinking Atlanta, it’s not in the Chase, but California, Charlotte, those style of race tracks. I think that we are cruising along until something insane happens because you’re so packed together, you’ve got twice as many cars in the same area, essentially, and it’s wild.”
YOU WORKED WITH A DR. JACK EDWARDS FROM APPALACHIAN STATE ON HYPER-MILING. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT, AND DOES IT HELP YOU ON RACE DAY? “He came over to the shop and we drove in the Ford Fusion Hybrid, and this hyper-miling stuff, actually, is a pretty interesting competition. They see how far they can go on the least amount of fuel in different types of production vehicles. He’s a pretty cool guy. He was really funny. And he showed me some stuff and some tricks that I kind of already thought, ‘Yeah, that’s probably the way to do it,’ but he had it down to a science, you know, how to get the most mileage out of the car, driving-wise, set-up-wise for your street car, and it was really interesting stuff. He was an interesting guy.”
EARLIER THIS WEEK, TWO LOTTERY JACKPOTS WENT OVER $200 MILLION IN THIS COUNTRY. IF YOU COULD WIN $200 MILLION, WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH IT? “I already feel like I’ve won the lottery – I don’t have $200 million saved up, but I’ve got a lot more than I thought I’d ever have. I guess if I were to win $200 million right now on top of it, what I’d do right now is I’d hire the smartest people I could and try to put that money to good use for education, because the more and more I see going on with this country, the more I feel like we can Band-Aid all of these little things that we Band-Aid with all of this money and all of this talk and everything, but I think that it comes down to education. I think that’s where we are lacking. So, if I could win $200 million, that’s what I would do, is figure out how I could apply it to cutting these problems off from the beginning.”
HOW MUCH PRESSURE IS ON PEOPLE THIS WEEK? YOU HAVE TWO TEAMMATES VERY CLOSE TO THE CHASE CUTOFF. “There really is a lot of pressure. We’re over 200 points inside of 13th, and that’s still not far enough. There’s a lot of pressure. This week, I feel like this race is a bottleneck. It’s a lot like a Talladega or a Daytona where anything can happen. So, there are a lot of people right now with a lot of stress, and I’ve got just enough to keep me honest. I’m going to be careful here and go out and try to get through this one and gain ground and not lose too much.”
MARK MARTIN WAS YOUR TEAMMATE, AND TOMORROW NIGHT HE WILL MAKE HIS 1,000TH CAREER START IN NASCAR OVER THE THREE SERIES. “If I had to pick one guy in the garage to be the definition of a race-car driver, it would be Mark Martin. He’s a guy that’s dedicated, he mentally and physically prepares, and he’s fair, he’s reasonable, he’s a good person. He just seems to be a right-minded guy. For that reason, I really enjoy being around him. As far as his inspiration, for me, everybody always talks about my fitness, how much I do, he was my inspiration for that. I would’ve probably never started working out if I didn’t see a piece that someone did on him about his fitness, and that’s helped me immensely in my life and my career. And still to this day, if I have questions or things in regard to anything that’s going on around here, he’s one of the first people I call. He’s always really helpful. So, it’s pretty cool; it’s his 1,000th start. He obviously hasn’t slowed down any.”
THE NATIONWIDE SERIES DOES NOT HAVE A CHASE FORMAT? DO YOU WISH IT DID? “I wish it did last year.” GIVEN THE CURRENT SITUATION WHERE YOU ARE IN SECOND PLACE, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IT IN THAT SERIES, TOO? “I don’t think you can ever say we should do something one way or another just because it benefits you personally. I think that in the end, the true way to crown a champion in a racing series like we have is to do it the old way. I think you have to see who has the best average. I think that the Chase, though, that format is necessary right now because it gives all the sponsors and the people who market with these teams, it gives more people value when the Chase comes around. So, for that reason, I think it will happen soon in the Nationwide Series and it will be good for the long term in the series, I think.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion – HOW CONSCIOUS ARE YOU EACH WEEK IN REGARDS TO WHERE YOU ARE IN THE CHASE? “Well, the closer you get, probably the more you look at it. I haven’t really been that worked up about it, honestly, because we’ve really been running so bad. I mean, as bad as we ran again today in practice, I can’t beat anybody, so I’m not really worried about the Chase tight now. We’ve got to get more competitive, and get up front and get running where we know we’re capable of, and then I’d probably think about it a little bit more.”
WHERE DO YOU FEEL WHERE YOU’RE MISSING IT? “Just car performance. I don’t know why, if I knew what area it was, like you said, I’d fix it, but our cars just aren’t fast. That’s our biggest problem. We’re not having really other kind of problems here lately, besides our performance. Our over-the-wall guys have been doing a really good job, I think our race strategy has been pretty good, we haven’t any dumb-luck or any bad things happen on the track the last month or so, but our car performance has been horrid.”
YOU’VE MADE EVERY CHASE, ONE OF TWO DRIVERS TO ACCOMPLISH THAT FEAT. IS THAT A BIG DEAL TO YOU? “Yes and no. You run the best you can every week, and some years and some weeks you’ve cars that run pretty good and sometimes you don’t, and this year has just been the cars haven’t run good. Now, we have basically run good enough to probably make the Chase the way the year has gone because the bottom three or four have had a lot of bad finishes and things happen, but our car performance has been so bad at the same time – for us, lately, a good day has been 14th, you know? That’s pretty good for us. That’s not near good enough to race with these guys. A good day has got to be a top-five and off-day has got to be eighth or 10th or 12th or 14th.”
HAS ROBBIE REISER BEEN ON YOUR PIT BOX THE LAST FEW RACES? “I don’t know; I’ve been on the track, but I think he’s been at the race track the last couple of weeks.”
A FORMER TEAMMATE OF YOURS, MARK MARTIN, WILL BE MAKING HIS 1,000TH CAREER NASCAR START. “I think it’s cool he has all of those starts – and he’d tell you the same thing, way more important to him – and the coolest part is how good he’s running. Although it’s harder to keep a job and make starts these days, there’s a lot of guys who probably can keep making those starts, if they wanted to, to be out there making starts, getting paid or doing whatever, but Mark is out there racing for wins and racing for a championship. I think he has the most wins this year at 50 years old, so that’s a pretty awesome feat to have all of those starts, and to be this far into his career and still be a winner, it’s pretty amazing.”