Motorsports

Biffle casts a wary eye on competition

By wire services
Published July 1, 2005

DAYTONA BEACH - If Greg Biffle had his way, the Chase for the Championship field would be as small as possible. Forget 10, give him one guy to worry about. Two, max. You get greedy when you reach the top of the Nextel Cup point standings for the first time.

Biffle, who leads the series with five wins and second-place Jimmie Johnson by 22 points entering Saturday's Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway, has a certain measure of control over the number of drivers that will contest the title in the second season of the 10-race Chase for the Championship format. The top 10 drivers qualify automatically, but so do any within 400 points of the leader. That currently includes 13 drivers, but if Biffle keeps running well, he could shake a few off the trail.

That sounds pretty good to him.

"You've got to look at it from a competitive nature, and that meaning, "Do I want to race against 10 guys for the championship, or do I want to race against 14 guys for the championship?"' Biffle said. "I'd rather race against two or three, so unfortunately they're making us race against 10 and that's all I want to race against."

No offense to the four-time Nextel Cup champion, Biffle said, but Jeff Gordon is fine right where he is now: 14th in the standings and 13 points from the cut-off.

"There are 10 guys or eight guys that are within that threshold and all of them can be a factor, so I wouldn't spell him out as a specific guy," Biffle said, "but certainly he's done this game before. He's won championships. He knows what it takes to win championships. He's going to be very tough, and basically all I'm going to do is points race like I always points race - think about the decisions we make, think about the risks I'm taking on the race track to put myself in those positions that I could possibly lose a lot of points - and that's basically it."

WEATHER WORRIES: The forecast called for widespread thunderstorms with an 80 percent chance of rain today and a 70 percent chance Saturday.

NASCAR already has a strategic alliance with Canada's top stock car circuit and strong television ratings.

"We're second on television up there, our ratings have been terrific," Pyne said. "And certainly Montreal has a great facility - world-class - so we're evaluating that. I think it's more likely to be a 2007 proposition than 2006, but it's a great racing market and we think our product will translate well there. We're very happy with how we did in Mexico City and that gives us a little more spring in our step as we look forward."

NASCAR staged a well-received Busch race at Mexico City's Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on March6.

SPARK PLUGS: Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is grand marshal of the Pepsi 400. Lisa Marie Presley will perform a pre-race concert. ... Roush Racing's next "gong show" open tryout among 1,667 applicants for a NASCAR truck series job will be documented by the Discovery Channel for a 13-part series that will air this fall. Roush announced Thursday the field had been narrowed to 25 hopefuls.

--Times staff writer Brant James contributed to this report.

[Last modified July 1, 2005, 01:24:21]