If there is one lesson Greg Biffle has learned this season, it's that what seemed true yesterday might not seem the same tomorrow.

Especially when it comes to the Car of Tomorrow, which unintentionally appears to have played a role directly in deciding Biffle's future as driver of the No. 16 Ford for Roush Fenway Racing.

Biffle is under contract as driver of the 16, but his current deal expires at the end of 2008. He said earlier this year that if he didn't have a contract extension in place by the end of this season, it was likely that he would be looking elsewhere for employment beyond '08.

Hey, he isn't Dale Earnhardt Jr. But with Junior off the market and other possible free agents such as Kyle Busch also already locked up for the immediate future, Biffle was poised to become the biggest "name" free agent-in-waiting on the block next season.

Now that mantle likely will fall to Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 12 Dodge; or Bobby Labonte, driver of the surging No. 43 Dodge. Both are under contract through 2008, but have yet to work out long-term arrangements beyond then -- same as Biffle.

But Biffle said he now has a "90 percent feeling" he will end up working out a long-term extension with Roush Fenway to stay in the No. 16 well beyond 2008. Already the car has a primary sponsor signed to a multi-year deal in 3M -- with that deal announced last week.

And while that is an important piece to the puzzle in getting Biffle to stay, he said it's all about improvement on the track -- especially in the COT that the Nextel Cup drivers will be sitting in again this weekend at Martinsville Speedway.

"The thing was, we had to get this race team winning races and bringing competitive cars to the racetrack. That's what we needed to do," Biffle said.

That wasn't happening earlier in the year, when the COT program was so bad at Roush Fenway that Biffle was seriously considering bolting as quickly as he could. He said he especially felt that way after the first COT race at Loudon in July, when he struggled to a 31st-place finish after starting 34th.

And he considered that a respectable effort on his part after the way practice had gone a day earlier.

"I was the slowest car there. The bottom of the sheet," Biffle said. "Then I went out and strapped my belts on and ran the fastest lap I could -- and I moved up one spot. I was like, 'This is [B.S.]. I'm completely disgusted that we cannot get going better than this. This is not a place I want to drive in the future if we can't go faster than 49th.'"

By then Biffle already had changed crew chiefs, switching from Pat Tryson to Greg Erwin. Considered a legitimate championship contender when the season began, Biffle finished 25th or worse eight times in the first 17 races to dig himself a hole that he could not climb out of in time to make the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

But after that first race at Loudon, he and Erwin at least started to click and, in his mind, get the No. 16 program, COT and all, headed back in the right direction. In the 14 races since, Biffle has finished outside of the top 25 only once, won his first race of the season at Kansas, and has eight finishes in the top 15, including four top-10s.

"Greg's done a good job of organizing the guys he's got. He's still shifting a few guys around," Biffle said of his crew chief. "Greg's happy with the direction things are going. And so am I. We finished 13th [in the second race] at Loudon and second [in the second race] at Dover. From those two races, I felt really good inside. Those are COT races. That's what we're racing full-time next year.

"We can't be top-10 every time, I understand. But when we went back [to Loudon the second time], we ran in the top 10 the entire time. We had a little boo-boo on a pit stop and ended up 12th, and then 13th when we gave Carl [Edwards] a spot at the end. But that was acceptable, that was really acceptable. That was quite an improvement. We got to Dover and run second, and that was a huge improvement. So I started to feel good again about what the future holds.

"Then we go to Kansas, back to the 1.5-mile program in the old car, and we win. It's just a good feeling to be back. Gosh, I feel like I got my life back. I feel like I got out of jail. I feel like I got the handcuffs off."

It was enough to get Biffle rethinking his earlier hard-line position about getting his contract extension with Roush Fenway completed by the end of this season. Now he said that he just wants to make certain it gets done quickly during the short Cup offseason, which commences following the final race of the 2007 season at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 18.

"I felt like it was important to get it done and not let it become an issue next year," Biffle explained. "Because let's say we get three weeks into the season next year -- and I'm not really under contract, I'm a free agent. Well, then, so-and-so announces they're going to have a fourth team, or somebody gets fired because they did a bonehead move, or whatever happens, all of a sudden, bang! I'm going to be the first guy going to the 49 or the 28 car, or who knows ... whatever it is. I don't want that to be a distraction.

"I don't know how soon we'll get going on [negotiating an extension]. Probably as soon as we get winter testing going, we'll probably get after it. ... [But] there's no doubt I'm here in 2008. Even beyond that, I have a 90 percent feeling that I'm going to be back here."