Local Look: Richmond

Events: Chevy American Revolution 400, Funai 250, UAW-GM Ohio 250

Local papers contributing: Richmond Times-Dispatch, Winston-Salem Journal, New York Times

On dominant team, Biffle vying for franchise tag

	Inside the Numbers Greg Biffle's Cup career at Richmond International Raceway Race Start Finish Fall 2002 37 33 Spring 2003 15 17 Fall 2003 2 20 Spring 2004 10 21 Fall 2004 8 8 Avg. 14.4 19.8

The deal: Greg Biffle has won three of 10 races, including the Dodge Charger 500 at Darlington Raceway last Saturday night, and is tied with Jeff Gordon for the most victories this season.

None of this seems to surprise Biffle, the only driver to have won the Craftsman Truck Series points title (2000) and the Busch Series championship (2002). It has been a slow, steady rise for Biffle, 35, a third-year Nextel Cup driver.

"This isn't something that's happened overnight," Biffle said during his post-race news conference. "We've been working on this program really, really hard for a year and a half. We've worked really hard in the wind tunnel. Our engines are way better. Our team has gotten better. Our pit stops are better. Our race savvy is better."

Why we care: Biffle's surge began last season, although he was not a contender for the Nextel Cup points championship. He won two races in the second half of the year, including the season- ending event at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and finished in the top 10 seven times in the final 18 races. Jack Roush, the team owner, noticed.

"I was really heartened by the way that this team come to life the middle of last year," Roush said. "He was a threat to win virtually every race for the last third of the year."

Just as he is this year. And Biffle does not figure on stopping at three victories.

ALSO •   NASCAR.COM Newswire •   Complete Race Coverage

"I think this team is capable of winning some more races this year," he said. " I don't want to speculate on how many, but I think we can win some more races."

Fritz has grown in role as RIR president -- and so has the track

The deal: Nate Ryan of the Richmond Times-Dispatch says if flawless anticipation hasn't been a hallmark of Doug Fritz's reign as president of Richmond International Raceway, the resolve for quietly upgrading and improving what needs fixing has.

In a sport filled with boisterous promoters who rose from P.T. Barnum beginnings, Fritz's low-key, buttoned-up style makes him an anomaly in his field. He is not flashy or particularly comfortable before a camera ("I'm not after the media blitz"). He isn't as outspoken or visible as predecessor Paul Sawyer, whose Feb. 26 death brought waves of colorful memories.

Why we care: Since assuming control before the 2000 season, Fritz has overseen more than $40 million in capital improvements on the 800 acres occupied by the 0.75-mile oval. RIR has built new care centers, transformed rundown Fairgrounds buildings into shiny hospitality pavilions, constructed new motor home lots for drivers and bird's-eye perches for their spotters, repaved its surface and installed the SAFER barrier.

Pit crews face dangerous work environment

Yost was injured at Talladega two weeks ago. Credit: AP

The deal: Mike Mulhern of the Winston-Salem Journal writes that the recent season-ending injury of crew member Josh Yost is the most recent example of just how dangerous pit road can be, when unarmed crewmen face off against keyed-up drivers in 3,400-pound stock cars in the heat of battle.

Yost's accident is every pit crewman's nightmare. They're all defenseless -- and unaware of the cars whizzing around them, because they have to focus on their specific jobs.

Why we care: Jimmy Makar, once an ace over-the-wall guy and now general manager for Joe Gibbs' three teams, said that overly-aggressive rival drivers and the sometimes miniscule size of pit boxes can frequently play a bigger role in the speed of a pit stop than the actual talent of the pit crew itself.

"Guys may do a 13-second pit stop, but if it takes your driver an extra second getting or getting out of his box, because another driver brushes back your guys, it's hard to really tell what you've got," Makar told the paper. "So we really don't know who the best pit crew is this season. So it's nice to have a competition like this again."

RIR a model for new NASCAR tracks

Credit: Autostock

The deal: Nate Ryan of the Richmond Times-Dispatch says since reopening as a reconfigured 0.75-mile oval in 1988, Richmond International Raceway has drawn hundreds of thousands of fans, countless raves from drivers and zero imitators.

Overlooked during the superspeedway-building boom of the 1990s, RIR's unique length likely will be copied when the next Nextel Cup Series facility is constructed. Tracks on the drawing board in New York and the Pacific Northwest are three-quarter-mile shapes patterned after RIR.

Why we care: ISC Chief Operating Officer John Saunders told the paper the New York layout partially was driven by space constraints, but RIR's popularity made it a sound choice.

"If you look at Richmond, Martinsville and Bristol, it offers a whole different dynamic of racing," he said. "The sight lines generally are excellent all the way around. The fans tend to see more side-by-side racing. I wouldn't say it's an industry standard, but it is more of a fans' preference."