Chase a second chance for winless Roush drivers

RICHMOND, Va. -- Greg Biffle knows from personal experience the kind of second chance a driver can receive from the Chase. The driver of Roush Fenway Racing's No. 16 car was winless on the season until he won the first two events in last year's Sprint Cup playoff, a boost that kept him in the championship hunt until the next-to-last week of the 2008 campaign.

If the Roush camp has any hope of contending for the 2009 title, it's going to need that same kind of sudden, dramatic momentum shift. Jack Roush's outfit has won only two races this season, both of them claimed by a driver -- Matt Kenseth -- who failed to qualify for the 12-man playoff. Now it's up to Biffle and Carl Edwards, both of them 0-fer this season, to carry the banner for an organization that's won a pair of championships and once placed all five of its drivers in the Chase.

Biffle, who finished the regular season in 11th place, will start the Chase at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend in 12th. Edwards, who last year won a series-high nine races and hung with three-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson until the finale at Homestead, will open the playoff in ninth. Both know that the system has granted them something of a reprieve.

"This season is so much different than last season," said Edwards, who secured his playoff berth with a 15th-place finish Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway. "We had six wins or something at this point last season. Right now, we have struggled a little bit as a group, Roush Fenway, so I feel like this is our opportunity to only be a few points behind the leader, kind of gather all of our energy and all of the things we have been working on and head into these last 10 races full-force. So I'm real excited about it, and hopefully we can have some good runs and get back up there the way we know we can run."

Edwards finished the regular season 526 points behind leader Tony Stewart. Now, he's only 40 behind Mark Martin, who assumed the top seed based on his series-leading four race wins. Biffle left Richmond 557 points behind Stewart. Like his teammate, he'll arrive at New Hampshire 40 points back.

"I'm excited about it, because if I win the first two races this year, I'll be leading the points and last year I wasn't," said Biffle, who clinched his berth with a 13th-place effort Saturday night. "It's pretty tight. Forty points, that's reachable in a couple of races. We are just going to have to run better. We are capable of that, and we have good race tracks coming up. That's what I'm excited about. A lot of it has to do with the race tracks, as well. We finished fourth at Bristol. Led some of it, so we are definitely a fast enough team, fast enough cars. The race track lineup is pretty good for us in the Chase but for a couple of spots."

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How much difference can the compacted point gaps of the Chase make? Consider that Biffle started last year's playoff in ninth place, 80 points off the lead, and was hardly considered a serious title contender until he won the opening races at New Hampshire and Dover, a run that vaulted him to third. That's similar to what happened in 2007 to Clint Bowyer, who was almost thought of as a novelty until he won at New Hampshire on the first Sunday of the Chase. He hung around the fringes of the title picture until the final three weeks of the year.

But is the Roush team of today capable of stringing together wins like Biffle did late last season? On the Sprint Cup side, the organization hasn't won since the second of Kenseth's back-to-back, season-opening victories at Daytona and Fontana. The Roush team has experienced uncharacteristic struggles as a whole this season, with Kenseth missing the Chase by 38 points, David Ragan and Jamie McMurray bottoming out, and Biffle and Edwards going winless on the year to this point.

As far as Biffle is concerned, there's only one thing they can do.

"Just keep figuring out how to make our cars faster," he said. "That's what we have been doing the last 10 weeks, all season. We only have two wins as an organization this year, and they both came from Matt, first and second race of the year. So we know that we are off a little bit, but you know, we are not going to give up. We are just going to keep working as hard as we can, and we know we need to be a little bit better."

• Sound Off on the Chase: Greg Biffle | Carl Edwards