Biffle remains optimistic despite COT struggles

"Winning is in your blood, don't get me wrong. I really want to win. But right now I need top-fives. A top-five at Charlotte, a fourth at Dover, another top-five at Michigan and we're right there, top-10 and we're in this thing."

That's how Greg Biffle finished our conversation Tuesday. Upbeat. Energetic. Optimistic.

He was working at his race shop outside of Charlotte. I don't think he stopped working while we were on the phone but that's OK, because as long as I have known Greg he has always been on the move.

Unfortunately, this season he has not been on the move. He is 16th in points, four spots (and 59 points) out of the final position that will make the Chase for the Nextel Cup. He was 15th at Darlington and hasn't had a top-10 finish in the last four races. In fact, he has only two top-10s in 11 races this season, fifth at Bristol and sixth at Texas.

But if you heard the tone in his voice, you would think that he finished second last week and was headed to Victory Lane this week.

"There's no give-up here," Biffle said. "I never get down. Whip me every week and I'll show up the next week tougher that nails. I have alligator skin. If Hendrick Motorsports won 10 races in a row, I would show up at the 11th race with my guns loaded."

Good thing, because that could happen.

"Damn right it could," Biffle said.

"I saw a writer on a TV talk show say 'Biffle is whining about Hendrick. They've tested 100 days and we've only tested 9 with the Car of Tomorrow.' I'm not whining. I'm stating the facts. Hey, congrats to those guys for kicking our [butt] so good. I praise those guys 100 percent because they figured out how to do it with a lot of hard work and effort. The chassis shop has built all the right pieces; the engine shop has done the job. If I can take both sides, I'll tell you I'm frustrated and impressed by what they've done."

Biffle says the Roush Fenway organization stopped working on preparing the COT because the car kept changing. The chassis, the greenhouse, they were spending time and money on a car that wasn't ever going to see the track.

"And I'm with [car owner] Jack [Roush] on that," Biffle said. "And as a driver, if you ask me to go test here or there and I'm driving a car that's never going to race, it's a waste of my time as well."

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.

"You're more nervous being the guy," Biffle said. "In 2005, every time I won I was like, this is awesome, but am I going to be able to win again? Is it going to be 20 races? A year? I'm always [concerned] when the luck is going to run out. And in 2005, it did 16 races in. We got off our game just a little bit.

"Ask Jeff Gordon how he was running in 2005. Heck, I was lapping him every race. He didn't make the Chase, wasn't even close. Look at him now. He knows that can change tomorrow, but that's why we love it so much."

Biffle believes in the Roush Fenway organization. He is involved in contract talks but we did not discuss that. He believes the hard work, long meetings and test sessions will pay off in the summer months. And you know what comes after the summer months, don't you? That's right, the Chase months. But to win it, you've got to be in it.

"By the time the Chase comes around, we're going to be bumping heads with those guys," explained Biffle. "Our plan is to get in, and we feel like we can be competitive enough to get in. We lost five spots at the end of the race at Darlington, we could have been top-five or at least top-ten at Richmond but the 66 took us out. If those things don't happen, we're probably 13th. Not stellar. But challenging."

And optimistic.

Biffle knows the schedule. He's seen the calendar. And he has one date circled on it, October 15th, the day he is getting married to his longtime girlfriend, Nicole Lunders.

Are you working on that?

"Nope."

Nothing?

"Not a thing."

Really?

"Really. I'm excited about it. We're getting married at a place in South Carolina we really like. But she is in charge of everything. I'm just going to show up on the 15th, come home on the 18th, and go to Martinsville on the 19th," Biffle said.

And you know what will be waiting for him there? A Car of Tomorrow race. Probably not the kind of honeymoon he was hoping for.