Greg Biffle would have made the Chase last year if the top-12 drivers made it, but he wouldn't have contended for the title. Credit: AP

Biffle says expanding Chase field not a solution

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- NASCAR reportedly is looking at ways to expand the field for the Chase for the Nextel Cup, but Greg Biffle says awarding additional spots won't make much of an impact.

HE DOES Eight years after their first meeting, Greg Biffle popped the question to girlfriend Nicole Lunders during the holidays.  •   Complete story, click here

NASCAR won't officially say what it will do to the current points system that awards a Chase spot to the top-10 drivers after the 26th race of the season. It has been speculated that NASCAR will simply expand the field.

But Biffle, who was 12th after the 26th race in 2006, says awarding more Chase spots will do little more than spread media attention."The facts are that the guys in probably the top-five or -six are the ones that ultimately have a strong chance of winning the title," Biffle said. "If you expanded it to 15, I think the championship guy is going to come out of that top-six spots."

In the three years of Chase competition, the farthest back a champion has come from behind was pulled off by Kurt Busch, who went from seventh to first in just three races in 2004. Tony Stewart was first when the 10-race stretch started in 2005, and Jimmie Johnson started the Chase in second place last year.

Had NASCAR awarded playoff spots to the top-12 drivers in 2006, Biffle and Tony Stewart would have secured the final two spots. Stewart missed the Chases by a mere 16 points.

SMOKE'S VIEWS On this week's "Tony Stewart Live," Stewart talked about the potential changes to the Chase:  "I still think it should only be 10 [drivers]. I mean, what's next? It goes from 12 to 15 two more years down the road and then it goes from 15 to 20 and this and that? No more than 12. It shouldn't have been more than 10 to begin with. That's a quarter of the field. Why do we need to bring in more than that? But I do like the idea of 10 more points [for a win].  "I think the one thing that hasn't been talked about that I keep bringing up & is give the top-10 guys in the Chase their own points structure. Yes, they are racing the other 33 guys for the win but they are racing the other nine guys for the championship so give them their own points structure and let them get their points accordingly."  "Tony Stewart Live" airs Tuesdays (8-10 p.m. ET) on Sirius NASCAR Radio/Channel 128. It re-airs Saturday (7 a.m. ET and 8 p.m. ET).

Although Stewart went on to score three wins in the Chase, he still would have lost the title to Jimmie Johnson, who secured the championship after scoring six consecutive top-10 finishes to close the year.

Biffle struggled badly down the stretch, only to end the season with a win at Homestead. Even so, Biffle admitted that he wouldn't have had a chance in the Chase had he qualified.

"If we would have made the Chase, we still would have never won the championship," Biffle said.

According to Biffle, the number of drivers in the Chase is not the problem; rather, it is the amount of exposure granted to the drivers that do qualify for the championship.

"Yes, [expanding the field] is going to give some of those other cars recognition, but we can fix that also by persuading the media or the television to cover a little bit more than just the Chase in those last 10 races at the same time we expand the chase," Biffle said. " I don't have a problem with expanding the Chase to 12, that's fine.

"Now there's going to be 12 guys we talk about. That's the way it is. There's still going to be somebody left out."