Biffle remains optimistic despite COT struggles (cont'd)

Biffle won the 2006 season finale at Homestead to go along with his win at Darlington earlier in the year. He knows the team and the organization are behind when it comes to the Car of Tomorrow. They've also had some parts break, and some equipment failures and some really lousy racing luck. But Biffle makes no excuses.

"How do we catch up? It doesn't happen overnight. The COT hasn't been good for us. We didn't know how far ahead some of the other teams were going to be. The car kept changing so we waited until they said here is the final product. We said when they get it figured out we'll go to work on it. Maybe the other guys stayed with it.

"Hey, if we went to Richmond with the old car, we're right in there with them. Dover? I'm telling you right now, with the old car, I'm top-five with a good chance to win. But with the new car I have no clue. Are we going to be the best or the worst? We could run 32nd. That's possible. Nobody knows," he said.

Greg said the team doesn't know what the exact fix is, but they are working on it.

"We're assembling a team of people to help us get our legs under us, to try and go figure some of this stuff out. And it's not just this team; it's the organization. The reality is we're going to Dover with a car you've never been on the racetrack with. We don't know the springs, shocks, the sway bar? We'll take what we've learned in the limited practices at the races like Richmond and Phoenix, and apply that to Dover. I'm an optimistic guy but the outcome doesn't look that promising.

"Everyone is working overtime to find the solution, but it is still a guess for everybody. Hendrick, Gibbs, Childress, in the other races they have shown they were a little quicker to the punch, a little closer. They are fine tuning while we're still throwing everything in the shop at it."

Biffle is looking forward to Charlotte. He has a good car for the all-star race this weekend and is excited about their chances in the 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Neither event is a COT race.

"We were a tad off last year, and we might still be a tad off this year with the old car. Carl [Edwards] didn't win a race last year. The year before he won four. Still, I feel good about the next two weeks," Biffle said.

But beyond that, even Mr. Optimistic has his doubts.

"We're in a catch up stage," Biffle said. "Some people don't think we're as far off as I think we are. And maybe we aren't. Maybe a small change will make a difference. But from where I'm sitting in the cars I'm driving, I find that hard to believe. We have been periodically close, but we haven't been able to do it consistently."

In 2005 Biffle won five of the first 15 races, but won just once after that, the last race of the year at Homestead. He challenged for the championship that season and finished tied for second, 35 points out of first. He knows what it is like to be the leader of the pack, and he also knows what it is like to be chasing that guy.

"It's always more fun to be that guy," Biffle said. "Every driver in every car in every Nextel Cup race knows what it is like to be that guy. At some level in their career, they dominated. I once won 17 out of 19 events at Tri-City [Speedway]. And people were saying 'He's cheating or he's this or he's that'. We were just good.

"We've all been in that position. We've all been The Guy. We all understand it. We've been on both sides, whether it was in Nextel Cup or Late Models or Winged Sprints. That's how we got a ride in Nextel Cup."

But being number one comes with a price, and bulls-eye. (Continued)