For Greg Biffle, “everything is going right, right now."
Further evidence came Friday, when Biffle won his first Sprint Cup pole at Bristol Motor Speedway, for Sunday's Food City 500 — his 10th career Cup pole in 334 attempts.
The 42-year-old Roush Fenway Racing driver surprised even himself with a lap of 125.215 mph in his No. 16 3M Ford. He believed the time (15.324 seconds) would hold up for a top-five starting position, but winning the pole didn't really enter his mind. It has, after all, been 13 seasons since Biffle sat on his only pole at Bristol — when he was 29 and tearing up what is now the Camping World Truck Series.
In 2000, Biffle won the Truck title and backed that up two years later with the Busch (now Nationwide) Series championship. Upon entering the Cup tour full time in 2003, Biffle appeared destined to become the first Triple Crown victor in NASCAR.
A decade later, Biffle still is in position to reach that milestone. He is the current points leader, having bolted out of the blocks in the 2012 Cup season with three consecutive third-place finishes. And he has led more laps in the first three races than he did over the first 11 events of 2011.
Biffle called Friday’s accomplishment “a team effort” but attributes his current success to crew chief Matt Puccia. Not only does Puccia share Biffle’s passion for racing, the driver adds, “he won’t settle for everything not being perfect.”
Puccia replaced Greg Erwin as Biffle's crew chief last July for the race at Loudon, NH. Before Puccia’s arrival, Biffle acknowledges, the team was not “as prepared as it needed to be” with the new fuel apparatus. The team changed fuelmen twice during the season.
At the end of the year, Biffle was offered a choice between Puccia or Roush veteran Drew Blickensderfer. Biffle elected to stay the course with Puccia.
“I saw something in Matt that I have seen in some of the other crew chiefs I have won races with, (Truck crew chief) Randy Goss and others,” Biffle said. “Matt really cares about his cars. I see a lot of myself . . . in him. I see us being a lot alike when it comes to racing and what we think about cars and race cars and stuff.”
Puccia in turn swapped out the No. 16 pit crew with the No. 6 team and began assembling his own squad. When Biffle wandered into the Roush Fenway Racing shop over the Christmas holidays and noticed the crew covered in Bondo dust from massaging the team’s Daytona 500 car, he knew the right decision had been made.
“I just needed the right combination," Biffle said. " . . . But you can ask a lot of these drivers. When guys are running good, and when guys aren’t, it is not normally all the driver or all the team or all anything, it is a combination.
"All you (can) ever ask for, all I ever ask for as a race car driver is the opportunity to compete and win. You hope to have that every week. Some weeks you have it and some weeks you don’t. You have to suffer through those as a team.
“So far this season, I have had four weeks that I’ve had superior cars. I know that this isn’t going to last all season, but I am enjoying the hell out of it right now. Matt is the reason and (Roush general manager) Robbie Reiser and (team owner) Jack (Roush) and (chief engine builder) Doug Yates and all the guys at the engine shop are the reasons why we are as competitive as we are right now. It is all their hard work.”
Numbers game
3: Pumps currently used with the Penske Racing electronic fuel injection system.
4: Races Brian Vickers has finished on the lead lap at Bristol Motor Speedway.
9.1: Average finish of Kyle Busch — the best on the Sprint Cup circuit.
14: Timing and scoring lines — including two new lines — which determine the drivers' speed on pit road.
Say what?
When Tony Stewart was asked about the impact of his driver Danica Patrick entering the Prelude to the Dream charity race field, the champ replied, “We will know when we get there.”
