CONCORD, N.C. -- Don't hate Greg Biffle for wishing that the Coca-Cola 600 -- the Sprint Cup Series' longest race by 100 miles -- was a few dozen laps, or 50 or so miles, longer.

But after a hectic Sunday evening, highlighted by an off-sequence green-flag pit stop a little more than a quarter of the way through the 400-lap distance that put him almost two laps down, Biffle's No. 16 Ford was coming on at the end.

“

... You get it right for about eight laps and you're thinking, 'Man, this is great. Look out, here I come.'

”

-- GREG BIFFLE

And for the second consecutive weekend, he finished runner-up to Kasey Kahne's No. 9 Dodge.

"Yeah, it's the same thing two races in a row and we finish second to Kasey, but we needed this good finish, for the points [because] finishing last at Darlington really hurt us," Biffle said. "I wish we had another 50 laps or so, because 600 miles isn't far enough.

"But yeah, you'd think 600 miles is a long enough race to get it done and it took us that long to get our track position -- we just kept passing cars and passing cars and passing cars.

"Guys would take no tires and gas and get back in front of us again, so it was a little bit frustrating; but overall, I was probably more frustrated last week not getting the win [in the All-Star Race] because I felt like I had the fastest car.

"[Sunday] night, I didn't feel like I had the fastest car; I had a really good, solid car and just kept passing and got the track position where we were, at the end.

"But I would have liked to have a chance to race Kasey. We got pretty fast there the last 50 laps of the race. We were really fast."

The comeback, to finish 10.203 seconds behind Kahne, had Biffle shaking his head in the end, but he had a smile on his face.

"Oh, man -- that's probably the toughest car I've ever driven," Biffle said. "It was a hard-fought effort for all of us. We had run good all night. We probably had a fast enough car to run up there with [Kahne]. We ran lap times, but we just never could get track position.

"Every time we'd lose track position [because] I was too loose in traffic, too tight in traffic. Once it got strung out about 20 laps in, I would come on."

The last of 11 cautions waved with 65 laps remaining and gave Biffle the window he said he needed.

"We needed that long green run at the end because my car, I was just mowing guys down," Biffle said. "I passed [third place Kyle Busch] on the last lap down there in [Turns] 3 and 4, but [Kahne] had a lot of track position on us."

Biffle started fourth and was in the top 10 at all four 100-lap checkpoints, but between laps 100 and 200 he hit a bad spell.

"Temperamental stuff was going on with it that I don't have any idea -- the car was just a handful to drive all night," Biffle said. "That one time when I pitted [at Lap 134] I don't have any idea [what was going on]. It was back and forth and all over the place.

"I experienced some things with the car that's kind of new for me. We made some slight adjustments and put tires on it and the thing got so loose, like something was broke on the thing -- I couldn't drive it.

"I almost wrecked in front of a couple guys and felt like I maybe had a flat tire and pitted under green. I think we tightened it up a little bit just for a precautionary measure and it was a little bit better, and it just drove completely different from one run to the other.

"It was one thing or the other, and we never could hit it right in the middle. I think we've got some issues maybe with the way the car lands in the corner, or our bump stops or something. We'll go look at that some, but other than that, it was kind of uneventful.

"We were in the top-10 most of the night. We had to work our way back from getting a lap down -- got back on the lead lap and just kept chipping away at it. It seemed like it was hard to pass and lapped cars are difficult because they're just fast enough to make you aero-tight and it's hard to get a run on the guys.

"I was a little bit too loose up on the top sometimes, so it was hard for me to get up there and get a run at some of the lapped traffic. I was kind of stuck to the bottom."

The vagaries of his car aside, Biffle was particularly pleased to have run exceptionally well for the third consecutive race. He qualified on the pole at Darlington, led 95 laps and was contending when his car's engine failed.

For he and crew chief Greg Erwin, dealing with the new car this season has been a non-stop adventure. And despite that, Biffle started the season with a 10th-place finish at Daytona and has only fallen as low as 11th in points, his current position that he's held since a last-place finish at Darlington.

He said he wasn't sure if frustration or surprise would be his take on 12 races with this car in its first full-time season.

"It is really, really hard because it is frustrating," Biffle said. "You feel like when the car is pushing, you've got one arm tied behind your back. And then if it's too loose, you're about ready to bust your butt every lap and you're holding your breath and you can't drive around other cars.

"It's so hard to get it right and you get it right for about eight laps and you're thinking, 'Man, this is great. Look out, here I come.' And then you about spin out and wreck and then you're loose and then it starts tightening up because you start closing your corner up, so it is hard to get it balanced for a whole fuel run.

"And really you can't because the fuel cell is in the back of the car, it holds 18 gallons of fuel and it burns it off and it gets harder on the front bump stops. It's just that simple.

"And then the thing is hanging behind the rear axle when it's full of gas on new tires, so it's hard to get the car to drive reasonable the entire fuel run. Some guys are better at the end, some guys are better at the beginning."