Q&A: Greg Biffle (cont'd)

Q: What problems have you had and what concerns do you have about the COT going forward?

Biffle: Well, certainly NASCAR has been receptive to us addressing problems with it. Last week ... I took the foam to the NASCAR tech center, and NASCAR was in a fairly large meeting with all their guys about the car, and they looked at the foam. Steve Peterson came to our race shop and looked at the racecar and felt like we could have an extra heat shield and then maybe notch the foam up a little bit more around the area where the exhaust is and felt like that would address the issue.

Safety foam among COT burning issues

Three teams reported problems when the COT debuted at Bristol. At Martinsville, the foam in Kevin Harvick's car started melting for reasons officials are still trying to figure out.

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We talked about the foam -- does it have any toxicity to it as far as when it melts or on fire? A lot of things that burn are bad to breathe in; no matter what it is, it's bad to breathe. He reassured us that that foam was OK when it smoked or whatever happened to it.

On the other hand, he said it was nonflammable, and I don't know what happened to Kevin's [car] exactly. There's another layer of board that that foam is bolted to that holds it in place. I say board, it's not a piece of wood; it's some kind of material that I can't answer. So there is an issue with the exhaust. The exhaust gets very hot in these racecars. It's hot inside.

When you think about this for a minute, people say we aren't athletes and how hot does it get inside that car? How many people ask you that, how hot does it get inside there? Well, that foam is inside the racecar. If my arm was a foot longer I could reach over and poke it with my finger, and that stuff is burning. So that's how hot it is inside that racecar for four hours, four-and-a-half hours. It's hot inside there.

Obviously, NASCAR is aggressively addressing it now. I actually have a week or two off with it, actually just one, then we go to Phoenix. They're on it, I'm sure, and we're looking at it, as well. What we can do?

But keep in mind it's not even hot yet. We're not at these hot racetracks where it's going to be hotter outside, and that's going to play a factor, as well. When it's 10, 20 degrees hotter outside, it gets hotter inside.

Q: Did you just gather stuff up and decide to go over to the R&D Center or make an appointment?

Biffle: I didn't make an appointment, I just gathered the stuff up under my arm and got the car and went over there, knocked on the door and said is Robin Pemberton in, and they said he's in a meeting. He came out and talked to me for a few minutes and said, "Why don't you come in here." I came in, and there was this conference room with like 25 people in it. You know, they were having their regular meeting, Truck Series, Busch Series, the whole thing. They wanted me in front of all those people so we could have someplace we could discuss what happened.

And part of the reason why I went over there is to talk about my car being low and figuring out what they had found, if they found anything with the car. They know that we didn't adjust any jack bolts, they know all these other things. You know, I was addressing some issues with the car.

I think that we have more things to address and work on than a quarter panel being a quarter-inch low. That doesn't matter.

Now, if it was high, certainly it would matter. I wish I would have been high. I wish it would have been the height it was supposed to be. I may have won the race. It may have given me enough advantage I could win.

I just went over there to address all the things with the car. I had never been over there before. The day I was down at the shop in our meetings, and we were talking about the car and what to do, and we're like, we've got to do something about this foam. So I just said, I'm going to go over and see if anybody is over there and if they can look at this and make some suggestions because obviously they've done a lot of work on it.

NASCAR was so receptive to that. They said thanks for coming over, I'm glad you came over. Steve Peterson came over to our shop and looked at the car and looked where it melted from and all that.

So I think that they enjoyed that interaction with us helping them resolve some issues with the car. We want it to do well. I mean, we're racing it. (Continued)