Biffle opens Chase with late pass to earn NHMS victory

LOUDON, N.H. -- Greg Biffle found Victory Lane for the first time this season and made a giant leap toward the top of the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings, while Kyle Busch saw the fruits of 26 weeks of labor disappear in one forlorn afternoon.

Sylvania 300

Official Results

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Greg Biffle	Ford
2.	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet
3.	Carl Edwards	Ford
4.	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet
5.	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Chevrolet
6.	Kurt Busch	Dodge
7.	Martin Truex Jr.	Chevrolet
8.	Tony Stewart	Toyota
9.	Denny Hamlin	Toyota
10.	Kevin Harvick	Chevrolet

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Biffle passed Jimmie Johnson on Lap 289 of Sunday's Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and held on for the victory, the 13th of his career and his first since winning at Kansas Speedway in the third race of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup last year (watch video).

In winning the first Chase event of 2008, Biffle crossed the finish line .505 seconds ahead of Johnson, who had won the previous two Cup races, at Fontana and Richmond. Carl Edwards ran third, followed by Jeff Burton and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Johnson led the most laps and gained a tie with Edwards at the top of the Chase standings, though Edwards gets credit for first place with six victories this year to Johnson's four. Biffle vaulted six positions to third place, 30 points behind Edwards and Johnson.

In Busch's case, a sway-bar problem and a subsequent wreck washed away the 80 bonus points Busch had accumulated with eight victories in the 26 races leading up to the Chase. Busch finished 34th, 12 laps down, and dropped to eighth in the standings, 74 points behind the leaders.

Biffle had been saving his best effort for the end of the race, and when Johnson's car got loose after a restart on Lap 288, Biffle made the winning pass a lap later through Turns 3 and 4. Two cautions during the last 33 laps helped him save the fuel he needed for the closing green-flag run.

"This Turbo HD Ford really wanted to go, but I was holding back at the end there -- at the middle part of that run -- and then we got those cautions, thankfully," Biffle said. "That's what my plan was inside the car, close us up to Jimmie Johnson and get us a shot at him.

"I was a little better than him on that short run. He was a little bit loose -- and I knew it."

Johnson apologized to his crew on the radio for not being able to hold the lead, but the consolation was an excellent start to the Chase, which Johnson won in 2006 and 2007.

"We'd been very, very strong all day long," said Johnson, who led 96 of the 300 laps at the 1.058-mile flat track. The short runs were what hurt me the most. ... I felt a little vulnerable, and sure enough, he got by. I was inching back up to him, but I just didn't have enough laps at the end there."

Edwards, who had suffered though two miserable days of practice, was elated by his third-place finish.

"That's why it sounds like I'm in Victory Lane -- I'm pumped," Edwards said after climbing from the car. "It just wasn't any good in practice. [Crew chief] Bob Osborne, he did a great job coming up with a setup for us -- springs, shocks, track bar, front bar, all that stuff. He showed me the sheet this morning, and I said, 'Man, I hope it works.' And it did."

If Edwards' run was better than he thought it might be, Busch's first race as the top seed in the Chase was a nightmare.

By Lap 16, Busch's No. 18 Toyota had begun to fade badly because of a broken sway bar. When NASCAR called a competition caution on Lap 35, Busch passed the pace car on the way to his pit stall and was held in the pits for a one-lap penalty (watch video).

He lost another lap on the track, before a spin off Turn 2 on Lap 83 and a subsequent collision with Jamie McMurray's Ford cost him another six laps in the garage while his car was being repaired (watch video).

Notes: Matt Kenseth was the only Chase driver victimized by a Lap 229 crash that involved seven other cars (watch video). Seeded 12th in the Chase entering Sunday's race, Kenseth suffered his first DNF of the season, finished 40th and fell 177 points behind Edwards and Johnson. ... Tony Stewart overcame two problems in the pits, recovered a lost lap and finished eighth to gain one position to seventh in the Chase standings. He's 73 points out of first place. ... Joey Logano finished 32nd in his Cup debut, three laps down.