At the start of last season’s Chase Greg Biffle entered Loudon 12th in the standings. He went on to win the first race of the Chase and followed that up the next week by winning at Dover.
What a difference a year makes.
This year, Biffle again entered Loudon 12th in the standings but Sunday in the Sylvania 300 he was lucky to escape with a top-10 finish.
The Roush-Fenway Racing driver qualified 22nd but the team found out as soon as the green flag dropped that they had a horrible chassis set-up as Biffle found himself heading in the wrong direction.
The first caution on lap 66 for a blown engine in the No 9 of Kasey Kahne gave Biffle’s crew the opportunity they needed. Crew chief Greg Erwin ordered the crew to change the set up on the Ford Fusion back to the same specs they had when the car first rolled off the hauler at the beginning of the weekend.
While the wholesale changes helped, Biffle was forced to fight his way though the field on the tight Loudon track where passing is at a premium.
“I really thought I could run up front with those guys,” an exhausted Biffle said after the race. “All I needed to do was get track position and I could have been there. That was it – track position all day. I fought to get up there. I knew that once I got up there I could run with them, but I could just never get there.”
Biffle spent most of the afternoon fighting his way thorough the field and thanks to some help through pit strategy he found himself in 9th when Mark Martin crossed the line to score his fifth win of the year.
“It’s been rough, but this is a good race track for us,” Biffle said. “And we thought we were gonna run better than this, but we just needed track position.”
Biffle can take some measure of comfort though as the 9th place finish moved him up three spots into 9th as the series heads to next weeks stop at Dover.
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