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PRESS RELEASE
This Week In Ford Racing: NSCS Driver Greg Biffle
PCGCampbell For Ford Racing, Press Release
Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 3M Ford Fusion, was part of a three-driver Goodyear tire test at Darlington Raceway last month. Biffle spoke about this weekend’s race, along with the keys for his team making the chase.
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion -- WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS WITH THE NEW SURFACE? “Anytime we go to a repave we’re all holding our breath because anything can happen. Goodyear worked very hard after Atlanta to get the right tire and what they felt was gonna be the right tire. Jeff Gordon, myself and Ryan Newman worked really hard with the race cars to make sure that tire was gonna be the right tire – or felt like it was gonna hold up – but so many things can play a role down there. How hot it’s gonna be, if we get any rain, how much track time we get, how much rubber builds up on the race track. All of those things are gonna play a factor in the outcome of the first time going to Darlington with the repave this year, so it’s a big unknown and I think a lot of people should be eager to get there and see what the story is gonna be like, but I don’t believe that the tire is gonna be one. Fast? Yes. There’s just no doubt that there are only so many parts of the puzzle that make up the speed and you can only make the tires so hard and we can still drive it to slow the car down, so Goodyear has done what they can to slow the car down in speed and their hands are tied at the speed we’re going, which is fast. That’s the best tire they can make and we can still drive it, so it’s gonna be really interesting. I hope the racing isn’t too single-file. One thing about that race track is it’s hard to get side-by-side going so fast, so that’s gonna be the real key is how can we get side-by-side with the increase in speed and the shape of that race track, so I think there’s a lot of things to look forward to at Darlington. It’s gonna be exciting.”
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO STAY IN THE TOP 12 AND MAKE THE CHASE AND WHO ARE THE GUYS YOU FEEL YOU HAVE TO BEAT TO WIN THE TITLE? “What we have to continue to do to make the chase is not have races like Texas. The rest of our season has been really flawless, if you will. Texas and Martinsville, a little bit too, was a comedy of errors – not of anybody’s doing, but it’s just racing. We had material that failed as a bump stop – the rubber biscuit. Your life is in the hands of a two-dollar piece of rubber, so to speak, as far as your outcome on the day and that two-dollar piece of rubber decided to split and crumble into pieces, so that will affect the handling of the car. And then we had some bizarre mechanical issues. We had an ignition box that went haywire and then we had a carburetor issue that finally took us behind the wall to change the carburetor out, so we had some crazy things happen that in this sport today you just can’t have those issues. Like I said, it wasn’t anything that any one person touched or did wrong, it just all came out in that race. Other than that, we’ve been running good enough to make the chase – period. We’ve had the finishes it takes to make the chase. If we keep going like we’re going, then we’ll make it. As far as other guys, obviously Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards, and there are a few other big guns up there that you’ve got to kind of keep an eye on. Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, those Hendrick cars are gonna be tough. Junior is gonna be in the chase and he’s gonna be tough, and Denny Hamlin is Kyle Busch’s teammate. All of those guys take on a new face when the chase comes around. Some teams are able to excel and other teams flatten out when that time of the year comes, so we’ll just have to wait and see. We have to make it first.”
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