Motorsports

Biffle's victory has him giddy, wanting more

By MIKE READLING
Published November 22, 2004

[Getty Images] Kurt Busch smokes his tires in celebration of his first Nextel Cup title. Busch, 26, finished fifth in the season-ending Ford 400 to edge Jimmie Johnson by eight points and Jeff Gordon by 16 in NASCAR's Chase for the Championship. Photo gallery

Chase To The End Biffle's victory has him giddy, wanting more Johnson's rally comes up .342 seconds short New points format wears on Jeff Gordon NEXTEL Cup standings

Kurt Busch at a glance AGE: 26 HOMETOWN: Las Vegas NEXTEL CUP STARTS: 150 NEXTEL CUP WINS: 11 (three this season) TOP FIVES: 34 (10 this season) TOP 10S: 61 (21 this season) PREVIOUS POINTS FINISHES: 27th in 2001, third in '02, 11th in '03 FAST FACTS: Busch won the Southwest Tour title in 1999 before graduating to Jack Roush's NASCAR truck series team, where he won four races and finished second in points in 2000. His crew chief, Jimmy Fennig, earned his first title as well after years toiling on Midwestern short tracks, then for Bobby Allison's underfunded Winston Cup team. Busch's younger brother, Kyle, was the runnerup in the Busch Series this season driving for Hendrick Motorsports.

HOMESTEAD - Okay, maybe it was a little overstated. Given time to cool down and reflect on it, even Greg Biffle might admit to that.

Still, you can't blame Biffle if he was just a little giddy Sunday night after the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. After all, he had just finished a race in which he clearly had the fastest car, leading a race-high 117 of the 267 laps.

Then, not only did he win his second race of the season and third of his career, Biffle did it by driving cleanly among the three drivers vying for the Nextel Cup championship in the pressure-packed final laps. All this after he charged from 24th place with 34 laps remaining to take the lead with two laps left on a reflex pass when the car in front of him basically stopped on a restart.

In short, Biffle thought he and his team proved themselves in the biggest race of the season and that was part of the reason he let loose with one of the most optimistic quotes of the day. "I feel like we have our spot secured in the Chase for the Nextel Cup next year," Biffle said.

That might be going a little bit too far considering those spots won't even begin to be determined until February but, after the day Biffle had, you kind of got the idea of what he was thinking.

"The reason I'm still there today is because (team owner Jack Roush) knows that what happened today is what I'm capable of as a driver and what Doug (Richert) can do as a crew chief," Biffle said.

While the car was strong, perhaps the most impressive part of Biffle's day came toward the end of the race when he was bunched at the front of the field with Ryan Newman, a red-hot Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Kurt Busch, who were all fighting for the series championship. Biffle turned a position some drivers might have felt uncomfortable with into a defining moment as he took advantage of Newman's misfortune, avoided Stewart when he ran out of gas on a restart and was a nonfactor in the other three drivers' fight for the title.

"That's the toughest spot to be in your life," Biffle said. "I wanted to win the race, I had the car to win the race, I felt like we were entitled to win the race but I was super-conscious of what was going on around me."

[Last modified November 22, 2004, 12:07:52]