NASCAR Wrecks - Biffle is Back!
By Ron Felix
Courtesy of www.insiderracingnews.com
Greg Biffle shook off the bad luck that's been plaguing him and he held off a fast closing Jeff Gordon on Saturday night at Darlington Raceway to win the Dodge Charger 500. It was the first victory of the season for Biffle and the tenth of his career in 125 starts. Biffle’s last victory came at Homestead in November 2005, 11 races ago. All 10 of Biffle’s victories have come on a superspeedway, including two at Darlington and his first superspeedway victory came at Daytona in July 2003.
Biffle became the eighth different race winner in 2006 and he moved to 50th on NASCAR’s all-time winners list tied with Donnie Allison and Sterling Marlin. Biffle also led seven times for 170 laps including the final 49 laps. It was the fourth time in 2006 and the 10th time in his career that Biffle led the most laps in a race. He won the first five races in which he led the most laps. Biffle led the most laps at California, Atlanta and Phoenix this year and finished 15th or worse in all three races.
Two races ago Biffle was 232 points behind 10th. With his victory, Biffle climbed from 20th to 14th in points gaining six positions and is just 106 behind 10th-place Jeff Burton. After 11 races in 2005, he ranked second in the point standings.
"I figured once I got out in clean air that my race car was gonna be a lot better and I’d be able to save my tires more for that long, long run," Said Biffle. "It worked exactly how I planned it to work. They did catch me at the end of that run, but I accomplished my goal of leading to the most laps and getting the five bonus points. That’s what I had in mind at that point and not use up too much tire. It was just a good night overall for us.”
This was team owner Jack Roush’s 91st NASCAR NEXTEL Cup victory. Roush has scored five NASCAR NEXTEL Cup victories at Darlington Raceway. Jack Roush Racing has won at least one race each season 1997-2006, 10 consecutive years.
“I felt like I had been letting Greg down this year," Roush explained in the post-race press conference. "We broke a couple of engines. We had great engines. We didn’t have an engine problem, I think, all last year – certainly not with the 16 – but had one engine problem on all of our teams. We had a couple of engine problems, which are inevitable, we had a couple of crashes and just had things happen. We ran out of gas once or twice. Greg has run good and Doug has done a nice job with the car. The team has done a great job preparing the cars and it was just a matter of time before we broke through, but if we would have let it get much further behind – if we could make a good showing with Greg at Darlington, I’m not sure what the year was gonna hold, but I felt like if we got our year turned around and could be really on track by Charlotte, we would have plenty of time to do our business and we’ve been working toward that. It finally broke for us tonight.”
Matt Kenseth was third and Jimmie Johnson fourth, both drivers led laps in the race.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was driving ill and at one point, called to his crew chief to keep an eye out for a driver, about his size, one that had dropped out of the race, to replace him if necessary. But Earnhardt hung on and finished fifth.
"I told them to maybe have someone on standby just in case," Earnhardt said, "but I wasn’t planning on getting out. Just screaming over the motor really tore my voice up. I don’t know whether they could hear me or not. It’s a tough race, man. I’m tired. Whether you’re sick or not, you’re going to be tired.”
Ryan Newman was sixth followed by Kyle Busch, Mark Martin, Jeff Burton and rookie Denny Hamlin to fill out the top ten.
Jeff Gordon desparately needed a victory, as Biffle did, but was not unhappy with his second place finish.
"I'll tell you we needed a top five just as bad as a win," Gordon said. "I think that with the last couple of weeks and the way they've gone, a top five is fantastic for us but when you're that close to the win you want it really bad. It's not about needing it, it's about wanting it and the fact that the team put out the effort that was capable of a win. I thought our pit stops were phenomenal tonight. I thought that the adjustments and the communications were also fantastic. We kept making the car better and better as the night went on. To me that's a sign of a great team. If we just could figure some of these setups out on these 1.5s, this team is going to shine. Tonight was very good for us."
Several big named drivers had problems.
Kevin Harvick had a chunk of the track come up and break his radiator, he finished 37th.
Jamie McMurray and Roush teammate Carl Edwards both suffered broken oil pump belts.
McMurray finished the night in 42nd spot while Edwards fared a slightly better in 39th.
After starting on the pole, Kasey Kahne finished a disappointing 21st.
“This wasn’t the finish we had expected tonight,: said a dejected Kahne. "We’ve had success here in the past and thought we could duplicate that kind of performance. The car was pretty good the first 100 laps, and then I couldn't get it to turn in and off the corner. We stayed in the top 15 and thought we would get things sorted out the last 100 laps. I brushed the wall (lap 272) and that didn’t help the handling. It’s a disappointing finish, certainly not what we expected.”
The Nextel Cup Series takes a week off but NASCAR will run the All-Star race in Charlotte next Saturday night. The Cup Series returns to action the following week at Lowe's Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600 on May 28, 2006.
Darlington Notebook Items
Jeff Gordon (second) scored his fifth top-10 finish in 2006. It was his 17th top-10 finish in 26 races at Darlington Raceway. Gordon climbed from ninth to sixth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings.
Matt Kenseth (third) scored his seventh top-10 finish in 2006. It was his best finish and fourth top-10 finish in 12 races at Darlington. Kenseth remained third in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings, just one point behind second-place Tony Stewart.
Jimmie Johnson (fourth) scored his eighth top-10 finish in 2006. It was his in seventh top-10 finish in eight races at Darlington Raceway. He remained first in the point standings. One year ago he ranked first after 11 races.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. (fifth) scored his fifth top-10 finish in 2006. It was his fifth top-10 in 12 races at Darlington Raceway. He climbed from sixth to fifth in the point standings. One year ago he ranked 11th after 11 races.
Three 2006 Raybestos Rookie-of-the Year contenders finished in the top-10 (Hamlin-10th, Sorensen-11th and Truex-14th). This marked the third time this season that three rookies have finished in the top 10.
At least one of the Raybestos Rookie-of-the Year contenders has scored a top-15 finish in all 11 races this season.
Raybestos Rookie-of-the-Year contender Denny Hamlin (10th) posted his fourth top-10 finish in 2006.
Dave Blaney (27th) extended a 29-race streak of running at the finish that began at Pocono last June, which is the longest current streak.
Tony Stewart (12th) ended a streak of top-10 finishes in the last five races.
Carl Edwards (39th) ended a streak of three straight top-10 finishes.
Mark Martin and Jimmie Johnson have each scored top-15 finishes in 10 of the 11 races in 2006.
Kevin Harvick (37th) dropped from fifth to ninth in the point standings.
Jeff Burton has climbed from 21st to 10th in the point standings since Martinsville. Heading to Lowe's Motor Speedway
Ryan Newman has won four of the last six Bud poles at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Newman has started fourth or better in all 10 of his races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway
Jimmie Johnson has won five of the last six races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, including four straight. No driver has won five straight races on a superspeedway. Richard Petty holds the record of seven straight victories at a short track which occurred at Richmond (Fall 1970-Fall 1973).
Darrell Waltrip also won seven straight at Bristol between 1981 and spring 1984.
Jimmie Johnson has scored eight straight top-10 finishes at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, the longest current streak.
The last five races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway have been won from a top-10 starting position. Four of Jimmie Johnson’s five wins at Lowe’s were from the top 10. His first victory at Lowe’s (May 2003) came from a 37th-place starting position, the lowest starting position of a race winner at Lowe’s in 94 races there.
A Chevrolet has won the last six races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
The NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Leader bonus will be worth $30,000 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
13 drivers have won a race at Lowe’s from the first-place starting position, the second-place starting position and the third-place starting position.
For full final race results... (Insider Racing News)
Article Courtesy of www.insiderracingnews.com
Courtesy of www.insiderracingnews.com
Greg Biffle shook off the bad luck that's been plaguing him and he held off a fast closing Jeff Gordon on Saturday night at Darlington Raceway to win the Dodge Charger 500. It was the first victory of the season for Biffle and the tenth of his career in 125 starts. Biffle’s last victory came at Homestead in November 2005, 11 races ago. All 10 of Biffle’s victories have come on a superspeedway, including two at Darlington and his first superspeedway victory came at Daytona in July 2003.
Biffle became the eighth different race winner in 2006 and he moved to 50th on NASCAR’s all-time winners list tied with Donnie Allison and Sterling Marlin. Biffle also led seven times for 170 laps including the final 49 laps. It was the fourth time in 2006 and the 10th time in his career that Biffle led the most laps in a race. He won the first five races in which he led the most laps. Biffle led the most laps at California, Atlanta and Phoenix this year and finished 15th or worse in all three races.
Two races ago Biffle was 232 points behind 10th. With his victory, Biffle climbed from 20th to 14th in points gaining six positions and is just 106 behind 10th-place Jeff Burton. After 11 races in 2005, he ranked second in the point standings.
"I figured once I got out in clean air that my race car was gonna be a lot better and I’d be able to save my tires more for that long, long run," Said Biffle. "It worked exactly how I planned it to work. They did catch me at the end of that run, but I accomplished my goal of leading to the most laps and getting the five bonus points. That’s what I had in mind at that point and not use up too much tire. It was just a good night overall for us.”
This was team owner Jack Roush’s 91st NASCAR NEXTEL Cup victory. Roush has scored five NASCAR NEXTEL Cup victories at Darlington Raceway. Jack Roush Racing has won at least one race each season 1997-2006, 10 consecutive years.
“I felt like I had been letting Greg down this year," Roush explained in the post-race press conference. "We broke a couple of engines. We had great engines. We didn’t have an engine problem, I think, all last year – certainly not with the 16 – but had one engine problem on all of our teams. We had a couple of engine problems, which are inevitable, we had a couple of crashes and just had things happen. We ran out of gas once or twice. Greg has run good and Doug has done a nice job with the car. The team has done a great job preparing the cars and it was just a matter of time before we broke through, but if we would have let it get much further behind – if we could make a good showing with Greg at Darlington, I’m not sure what the year was gonna hold, but I felt like if we got our year turned around and could be really on track by Charlotte, we would have plenty of time to do our business and we’ve been working toward that. It finally broke for us tonight.”
Matt Kenseth was third and Jimmie Johnson fourth, both drivers led laps in the race.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was driving ill and at one point, called to his crew chief to keep an eye out for a driver, about his size, one that had dropped out of the race, to replace him if necessary. But Earnhardt hung on and finished fifth.
"I told them to maybe have someone on standby just in case," Earnhardt said, "but I wasn’t planning on getting out. Just screaming over the motor really tore my voice up. I don’t know whether they could hear me or not. It’s a tough race, man. I’m tired. Whether you’re sick or not, you’re going to be tired.”
Ryan Newman was sixth followed by Kyle Busch, Mark Martin, Jeff Burton and rookie Denny Hamlin to fill out the top ten.
Jeff Gordon desparately needed a victory, as Biffle did, but was not unhappy with his second place finish.
"I'll tell you we needed a top five just as bad as a win," Gordon said. "I think that with the last couple of weeks and the way they've gone, a top five is fantastic for us but when you're that close to the win you want it really bad. It's not about needing it, it's about wanting it and the fact that the team put out the effort that was capable of a win. I thought our pit stops were phenomenal tonight. I thought that the adjustments and the communications were also fantastic. We kept making the car better and better as the night went on. To me that's a sign of a great team. If we just could figure some of these setups out on these 1.5s, this team is going to shine. Tonight was very good for us."
Several big named drivers had problems.
Kevin Harvick had a chunk of the track come up and break his radiator, he finished 37th.
Jamie McMurray and Roush teammate Carl Edwards both suffered broken oil pump belts.
McMurray finished the night in 42nd spot while Edwards fared a slightly better in 39th.
After starting on the pole, Kasey Kahne finished a disappointing 21st.
“This wasn’t the finish we had expected tonight,: said a dejected Kahne. "We’ve had success here in the past and thought we could duplicate that kind of performance. The car was pretty good the first 100 laps, and then I couldn't get it to turn in and off the corner. We stayed in the top 15 and thought we would get things sorted out the last 100 laps. I brushed the wall (lap 272) and that didn’t help the handling. It’s a disappointing finish, certainly not what we expected.”
The Nextel Cup Series takes a week off but NASCAR will run the All-Star race in Charlotte next Saturday night. The Cup Series returns to action the following week at Lowe's Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600 on May 28, 2006.
Darlington Notebook Items
Jeff Gordon (second) scored his fifth top-10 finish in 2006. It was his 17th top-10 finish in 26 races at Darlington Raceway. Gordon climbed from ninth to sixth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings.
Matt Kenseth (third) scored his seventh top-10 finish in 2006. It was his best finish and fourth top-10 finish in 12 races at Darlington. Kenseth remained third in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings, just one point behind second-place Tony Stewart.
Jimmie Johnson (fourth) scored his eighth top-10 finish in 2006. It was his in seventh top-10 finish in eight races at Darlington Raceway. He remained first in the point standings. One year ago he ranked first after 11 races.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. (fifth) scored his fifth top-10 finish in 2006. It was his fifth top-10 in 12 races at Darlington Raceway. He climbed from sixth to fifth in the point standings. One year ago he ranked 11th after 11 races.
Three 2006 Raybestos Rookie-of-the Year contenders finished in the top-10 (Hamlin-10th, Sorensen-11th and Truex-14th). This marked the third time this season that three rookies have finished in the top 10.
At least one of the Raybestos Rookie-of-the Year contenders has scored a top-15 finish in all 11 races this season.
Raybestos Rookie-of-the-Year contender Denny Hamlin (10th) posted his fourth top-10 finish in 2006.
Dave Blaney (27th) extended a 29-race streak of running at the finish that began at Pocono last June, which is the longest current streak.
Tony Stewart (12th) ended a streak of top-10 finishes in the last five races.
Carl Edwards (39th) ended a streak of three straight top-10 finishes.
Mark Martin and Jimmie Johnson have each scored top-15 finishes in 10 of the 11 races in 2006.
Kevin Harvick (37th) dropped from fifth to ninth in the point standings.
Jeff Burton has climbed from 21st to 10th in the point standings since Martinsville. Heading to Lowe's Motor Speedway
Ryan Newman has won four of the last six Bud poles at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Newman has started fourth or better in all 10 of his races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway
Jimmie Johnson has won five of the last six races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, including four straight. No driver has won five straight races on a superspeedway. Richard Petty holds the record of seven straight victories at a short track which occurred at Richmond (Fall 1970-Fall 1973).
Darrell Waltrip also won seven straight at Bristol between 1981 and spring 1984.
Jimmie Johnson has scored eight straight top-10 finishes at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, the longest current streak.
The last five races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway have been won from a top-10 starting position. Four of Jimmie Johnson’s five wins at Lowe’s were from the top 10. His first victory at Lowe’s (May 2003) came from a 37th-place starting position, the lowest starting position of a race winner at Lowe’s in 94 races there.
A Chevrolet has won the last six races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Jeff Gordon finished 30th and 38th at Lowe’s in 2005.
The NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Leader bonus will be worth $30,000 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
13 drivers have won a race at Lowe’s from the first-place starting position, the second-place starting position and the third-place starting position.
For full final race results... (Insider Racing News)
Article Courtesy of www.insiderracingnews.com
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