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Greg Biffle finished fourth at Talladega last week.
Somewhere in a warehouse in New York near Yankee Stadium there are several boxes of brand new caps collecting dust; caps that will never see the light of day.
That’s because they are imprinted with the words “Philadelphia Phillies, 2009 World Series Champions”. The New York Yankees made those hats worthless with a 7-3 win Wednesday night.
So it goes with professional sports. When there is playoff, or championship, no one can predict the outcome so all the bases-pun intended- have to be covered, so professional sports leagues are forced to buy the paraphernalia for more then one team and wait for the outcome.
NASCAR doesn’t have that problem this year.
It’s pretty much assured that Jimmie Johnson will be doing the Sprint Cup champions hat dance come Homestead in three weeks. With a commanding points lead, there’s only one thing those in the Chase behind Johnson can do; win races.
For drivers like Roush-Fenway Racing driver Greg Biffle, who moved up to seventh in the standings after a fourth place finish at Talladega last week, the hopes for a championship this year are over. But there are three more opportunities for Biffle to avoid something that’s never happened. Biffle is in serious danger of going winless in a season since he became a fulltime competitor in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series in 2003.
In other words, Biffle needs to win races.
One of the three final opportunities comes this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. It’s a track where Biffle has enjoyed some moderate success but has had some bad luck as well. He has four top-10 finishes but he also has five finishes of 30th or worse due to on-track incidents or part failures.
His last two races here though Biffle has finished in the top five. In fact according to Biffle the spring race, where he finished third, is one he feels could have improved on.
"I really feel like we should have won the race at Texas earlier this year but it just didn't work out that way,” Biffle said. “We always run well there and I'd like to go back this weekend and get the win I think we should have had there in the spring.”
Biffle’s crew chief, Greg Erwin, said that one reason for Biffle’s recent success at Texas isn’t necessarily in the mechanics of the racecar.
“The track suits Greg's driving style and that always helps,” Erwin said. “Greg led 93 laps in the spring race and we had a little problem in the pits that he was able to come back from for a third-place finish. If we can avoid any little problems like that, I don't see why we can't get this 3M Ford into victory lane.”
And it’s victories that Biffle and Erwin are hoping for as they wind down this year and get ready for next.
“We're trying to get the highest position in points we can this year, but we're looking forward to picking some wins up,” Biffle said. “We think we can still win this year. We've got three more chances, so we'll get by those and see what we can do, but we're excited about next year."
Before next year though Biffle hopes to do some victory lane hat dances of his own starting with the cowboy hat given to the winner at Texas Motor Speedway.
Click here for our extensive Chase coverage with reports on all 12 drivers in this years Chase!
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