Chase field eliminated now from Biffle, third on down (cont'd)

Biffle had scored top-10 runs here in his past two starts and had high hopes of at least equaling his runner-up finish in this event a year ago. But his team had to change the transmission on the No. 16 Ford before the race, relegating Biffle to the back of the grid at the start.

Given that, crew chief Greg Erwin was pleased with their 11th place finish -- though it left them as the last team eliminated.

"Coming from the back and starting shotgun on the field certainly doesn't make your day any easier," Erwin said. "So I'm really proud of the way the guys performed on pit road, and I'll lay some of our green-flag runs up against anybody, including the winner of the race.

"There were points of that race where the field was stretched out that we could pick 'em off; so I'm proud of everybody, but we came up short and it was probably a bad decision on Greg and my part at the end of the race, and we probably gave up four or five spots to not take tires. But we just didn't have what we needed [Sunday night]."

To contend at Phoenix would've taken as dominant a car as Johnson displayed, but what may be the major topic of discussion at Ford Championship Weekend is how the season finale Ford 400 might be a Roush Fenway Fiesta.

"It could be," Erwin said. "I wouldn't write it off. It seems like the 48, at the higher-banked, one-and-a-halves like Texas, Atlanta and Charlotte, they have not been among the best one, two or three cars out there -- though they did have a good run at Kansas."

Edwards' and Biffle's teammate Matt Kenseth is the race's defending champion, though that was accomplished in the final race for the formerly used "standard car." Biffle won the three years prior to that.

They might all be chasing Edwards, who has to win to have any chance at the title.

And for the third consecutive season, no one is putting enough pressure on Johnson's team to make them really have to race in the finale -- though given their aforementioned performance that might be a moot point.

"Jimmie's been awesome, he's been doing good -- they're a great race team," Hendrick teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. said after finishing sixth and moving up to 10th in the standings. "Certainly, every sport gets dominated from time to time [and] this is really all I see happening here."

Erwin was one, though, who despite being disappointed at no longer having a shot at the title, still appreciated what his team had accomplished this season, and what they might yet do.

"I told all the guys at pre-race [Sunday], and I mean this with all that I've got -- that probably 10 months ago there wasn't one person that was going to pick us to be sitting where we're sitting right now in the championship," Erwin said. "With the newness of the team and the relationship between Greg and myself was still brand-new, we had a new team engineer and just a new pit crew.

"For this thing to come together and you look at the teams we're parked next to -- they've been together for many years, most of them. So I couldn't be more proud of our team and our effort. We've got nothing to hang our heads about -- nothing at all. It's been a successful season and a good season and we're gonna go back and build on it."

But first, there's Homestead.

"We'll have a good car at Homestead," Erwin said. "I think with what I learned from our Atlanta disaster, we had a much better piece at Texas [the difference of 10th to fifth at the finishes]. I think we know enough about the Homestead racetrack and obviously having Greg -- for whatever reason that's one of his favorite places and obviously one of the places he runs best at.

"So I'm pretty confident we'll do well there. We'll try to gain some points back on Carl and maybe we can still pick up second in the standings.

"Greg's going to go down there with his ears pulled back, going for the win and Carl's going down there knowing he has to win and lead the most laps, so I also expect that out of him. And of course, Matt's the defending race champion, so I expect our gang to be strong there."