LOUDON, N.H. -- Greg Biffle is redefining Murphy's Law.

Biffle was in New Hampshire on Friday for the first race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup when a gas leak caused a fire at his new home in Mooresville, N.C.

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It was a hell of an explosion that people heard all the way up the street.

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GREG BIFFLE

The fire, mistakenly attributed to a lightning strike in early reports, damaged a balcony outside the house, but firefighters contained the blaze before it could do serious damage.

"What happened is it was early in the morning, it was raining, and neighbors said they heard something," Biffle said Saturday between practice sessions at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. "They thought it was lightning. There was no lightning in the area, but it was raining real hard. The front porch has damage, the upper balcony in the front of the house. As they sat there and looked at it, one would think it maybe got hit by lightning or something like that made sense, but it was one of the gas light fixtures.

"We have gas lights on the upper balcony at the front of the house, and one of the gas lights, something happened to it and it blew out. It had a leak in the line or something, and it leaked gas into an exterior column on the front of the house. That column isn't on the house, it's outside of the house, but it leaked gas in there and exploded. Stucco and some other stuff got blown out into the front driveway. It was a hell of an explosion that people heard all the way up the street."

The fire is just the latest in a series of calamities for the driver of the No. 16 Ford. The day after he won the Nationwide Series race at Phoenix in April, thieves broke into Biffle's race shop and absconded with a number of his prized possessions, including a pair of custom motorcycles.

At 4:30 a.m. Thursday, when Biffle was asleep in his New York hotel before the start of Chase media day activities at the Hard Rock Cafe, a security guard attempted to enter Biffle's room. Fortunately, his wife, Nicole, had flipped the night latch that prevented the door from opening.

The drowsy driver rolled over and reached for his pistol on the nightstand, believing momentarily that he was still at his home in North Carolina. But it was New York, and the pistol was still at home -- a good thing, because athletes, firearms and New York City have been an unhealthy combination of late.

It turned out that hotel security was checking on an unanswered wake-up call -- and had the wrong room.

Stewart ready to roll

The past four races haven't been emblematic of Tony Stewart's season, but the owner/driver attributes his slack-off in performance to an all-or-nothing mentality. Comfortably locked into the Chase, Stewart has been trying to accumulate race wins, worth 10 points each in the Chase. Instead, he hasn't finished in the top 10 since winning at Watkins Glen in August.

"I think we got in a unique situation where it was either win it, or it didn't matter that we were even there," said Stewart, who will start second in Sunday's Sylvania 300. "For us, it's a situation where I don't think we kept the intensity up quite as high as we needed to. The good thing is that we have all sat and met each other this week and said, 'Hey, it's game time again.'

"The good thing is that even though we didn't really have a stellar four weeks, we have had a break, and it has given us a chance to kind of catch our breath and get ready for this last 10-week stretch, whereas some guys have been fighting all the way through last week. I feel like we are ready to go."

Busch the 'X' factor

Denny Hamlin said that Kyle Busch's promise to help his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate as much as he could during the Chase might not amount to much -- unless it involves a revenge factor.

"Like maybe if he's right in front of me, he'll let me have a spot or something like that, but I doubt he's going to take out guys I need him to take out," was Hamlin's tongue-in-cheek assessment.

With Busch having missed the Chase by eight points, however, he has more latitude to race aggressively.

"I think he has some scores to settle with some guys that I don't think he'll be too shy about doing now," Hamlin said.

• Chase gear: Greg Biffle | Tony Stewart | Denny Hamlin