HAMPTON, Ga. -- Greg Biffle and Jeff Burton had hopes Sunday of making up ground on points leader Jimmie Johnson. And when Johnson went a lap down after serving a pit-road speeding penalty early in the Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the opportunity was there.

Opportunity wasted.

“

I'm tired of people asking me how we're gonna catch him[Johnson]. ... We've got three more chances and then we're gonna start over next year.

”

GREG BIFFLE

Biffle rallied from a lap down to finish 10th and Burton was involved in a late multi-car accident which left him 18th -- but both saw their championship hopes dwindle with three races remaining on the schedule. Biffle, now third, fell to 185 points behind Johnson. Burton ended the race 218 points out in fourth.

Both drivers seemed to know from the start that it was going to be a long day.

"I don't know why, but the car obviously was not right," Biffle said. "We were awful in practice and just never got a handle on it."

Burton concurred.

"We just didn't run very good," Burton said. "We were nervous coming in about how we were going to run. The first run of the race, we were good. But from then on, we were pretty much in trouble."

As the lineup was set based on owner points, Biffle was second and Burton third at the start. But both drivers faded out of the top 10 during a early green-flag run and spent much of the race battling just to stay on the lead lap.

"We tried some different things on it in the race," Biffle said. "We tried a whole grocery list of stuff on it [Sunday], but we just couldn't get it to go. That's all we could do."

Biffle never found the grip he needed to get the No. 16 Ford back to the front.

"It just seemed like there wasn't a lot of grip and I couldn't get my car to get a hold of the track," Biffle said. "It would do about four things in the same corner -- just real, real loose and then it would get tight and then I'd go to the gas and get loose, and then on late exit it would push again. It was just on top of the track all day. We just need to do our homework better and just be better."

Burton was lapped by Matt Kenseth just after the midpoint and then suffered a tire rub with 75 laps to go after a collision on pit road. But his problems were only just beginning. He finally got the free pass following a Michael Waltrip spin on Lap 289. But 14 laps later, contact with Dave Blaney resulted in a five-car accident and banged up the nose of the No. 31 Chevrolet (watch video).

"They got three-wide in front of me going into the corner and I wanted to go to the bottom, thinking that was the safest place to go," Burton said. "And I was under [Blaney] and he was just in a bad spot and he looked like he got really loose and started down and we got together."

By that point, both drivers were much less interested in what Johnson was doing and just trying to salvage what they could from a disappointing day.

"We weren't thinking about picking ground up, we were thinking about just getting competitive," Burton said.

Biffle agreed.

"I'm tired of people asking me how we're gonna catch him [Johnson]," Biffle said. "We're just gonna race as hard as we can every week. We've got three more chances and then we're gonna start over next year."