Q&A: Greg Biffle (cont'd)

Q: I just want to clarify, NASCAR told you specifically that the foam was not flammable and the smoke is safe. Would you be as comfortable if you were now warned that the material is combustible and that some labor groups list it as possibly toxic? Do you see this as a design error in the car?

Biffle: Well, I mean, logic tells me if it was flammable and it was toxic, that would be bad. I wouldn't put anybody in that situation. I mean, you know, but I'm sure all the research has shown what will burn and what won't burn.

Is it going to smoke like it did and be melting? Yes, it may do that if it gets to a certain temperature. But is it going to have open flames and fire? I don't think -- I may be mistaken and whatever else, but I didn't see any flames in the 29 [Harvick's] car. I saw a tremendous amount of smoke coming out of it, but I didn't see any flames.

So there's a fine, not really a fine line, but there's a difference between something flammable and something melting and smoke coming off of it. I think about any material you get hot enough, it's going to smoke. But if it just started flames and then just started burning, that's different.

Our firesuit will melt. You know, you throw it in a campfire, something is going to happen to it, and it's going to -- probably going to smoke. But that doesn't mean that it actually caught on fire and has flames coming off of it.

Like I said, I don't think anything is non-toxic. There's a certain amount of toxicity to any material burning.

Q. So do you feel that it's a design error that the foam is so close to the tailpipe?

Biffle: Well, you know, I'm sure most of their testing was probably done on the energy absorbent properties of the foam, and then there was a flammable test probably. I don't know, I'm just speculating. I'm in an area that I don't even know. But how do we know? I think they've had thermal couples over in that side of the racecar to know what the temperature is, also, so they've got all the proper information.

Now, did the 29 car not have the heat shield in there? Did the 29 car have the foam right on top of the exhaust pipes? Did the exhaust pipes break on the 29 car? Ours broke the week before, and we used heavier pipes. Did he brush the wall and knock them loose or something and cause ... ? There's a lot of things unanswered here that we're pointing at that foam that there could be other contributing factors.

I'm not going to say it was a design error on NASCAR's part until we do a scientific analysis of exactly what happened. Did they have the proper amount of distance air gap, did they have the heat shields in place, all those things. Because we experienced the same exact thing the week before, and we fixed it and we didn't have any problems.

Q: A lot of guys have talked about the difficulty turning these cars. Is that something on a test that you can improve on a lot, or is it just something you're going to have to learn to deal with?

Biffle: Well, a little of both. We're going to work on getting our car to turn the best we can, whatever we can do, because this car has a higher center of gravity. This car wants to roll more because it's boxier and it's taller.

We're going to try to raise and lower the front wheel centers, we're going to try different things at the front, try different front sway bars and try and do different things with rear springs. (Continued)