Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 3M Ford, is coming off a 15th place finish in the Gatorade Duel 150 race yesterday, but partnered with teammate Carl Edwards to lead the field for much of the race. Biffle will start Sunday’s Daytona 500 in 26th position, looking for his first Daytona 500 victory and second win ever on the track. Biffle answered questions from the media on Friday.
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT SPEEDWEEKS SO FAR, CHANGES TO THE CAR AND YOUR FEEL GOING INTO THE 500 ON SUNDAY. “It has been fun so far. It is exciting and different. We really didn’t know what to expect coming down here. I don’t think any of us expected for it to turn out like it has with the two-car drafts. We are getting used to drafting with two cars against another two cars. We are learning very rapidly. It has been a good Speedweeks for us so far. We haven’t tore anything up yet, which is good. We will see how our 500 engine runs and make sure everything is good with it. I think NASCAR has done a good job with the rule changes to keep the cars under control and the track surface is super nice. They have done a fantastic job. I am really excited for the 500. I think it is going to be different than what we have seen so far.”
HOW DO YOU EXPECT THE 500 TO BE DIFFERENT AND HAVE YOU FIGURED OUT THE STRATEGY TO GET UP TO THE FRONT FROM 26TH? “We had a great 150 Duel race going and unfortunately at the end Carl and I got broken up and that wreck happened and we lost our mojo a little bit. I thought we were going to start toward the front. Like any restrictor plate race, I don’t think it really matters where you are going to start here in the 500. We will work our way up to the front. It will be interesting to see if guys push for 500 miles or not. That will be the interesting part of it. That and if NASCAR closes the grill down any more, which we will have to wait and see. I haven’t heard any rumors of that. How the 500 will be different, that is exactly I guess what I am talking about. I don’t know if guys will be pushing each other for 500 miles or not. Maybe it will be a big pack, stay a huge pack with people jockeying for position. We really don’t know yet and I am curious to see how that plays out.”
KEVIN HARVICK SAID THE TWO GUYS RUNNING SECOND YESTERDAY SHOULD HAVE WON THOSE RACES, BUT THEY WAITED TOO LONG TO MAKE THEIR MOVE. DO YOU THINK THAT IS CORRECT? “I only say one of them because I was in the car for the other one, so I didn’t see a replay of it. I only know how close they were at the finish. The one that I saw, yeah, I felt like the guy should have made his move a little sooner and tried to side draft him to the finish line. A win is a win. It wasn’t like the 500 was on the line. I would have certainly tried it. I would have pulled out to see, if nothing else to learn a little bit for the 500, but I didn’t get that chance.”
IT SEEMED LIKE MOST GUYS COULD GO THREE TO FIVE LAPS HOOKED UP TOGETHER YESTERDAY, BUT TREVOR BAYNE WENT LONGER, YOU WENT LONGER. IT SEEMS LIKE THE FORD CARS HAVE AN EDGE THERE. IS THAT BECAUSE OF THE FR9 ENGINE AND THE OPTIMAL COOLING? “I don’t know if the engine has anything to do with it. We have worked really hard on our cooling package. One thing that I saw yesterday is that it appears that the 31 and 33 cars stayed together for longer or as long as we did and were just a hair faster than us. The two Childress cars and Carl and I, they were a little bit faster than us, just by an ounce. I couldn’t see if they were switching places or what they were doing, so it was hard for me inside the car to pay attention of anything else going on around you other than right against your bumper. I don’t know if we are the best at the cooling package right now or not because I think the Childress cars seemed like they were a tick better than us. Whether it was cooling or however they were doing their deal, maybe just pure speed, they were a tick better. We have worked very hard on it though. We will have to wait and see if there are any more changes prior to the 500.”
HOW IS IT THAT YOU DECIDE ON AND FIND DRIVERS THAT YOU WANT TO WORK WITH, PUSH AND BE IN TANDEM WITH AND DO YOU FEEL YOU NEED BACK-UPS IF YOU GET SEPERATED? “You definitely need a back-up because Carl and I got separated yesterday and I was sort of our to lunch at that point. There wasn’t anybody around that I could find. There weren’t any single people left, they were all married. I was kind of left out on that island. The rose ceremony ended quickly for me. You gotta have options. The thing about it is, rarely is it that you all of a sudden lose your dancing partner and there happens to be another one there. That is what happened to me. I lost my dance partner and all of a sudden I am looking around and see that everybody is paired up. There were a few guys back there that weren’t. At the end we tried to get paired up with one of them and he was like ‘I don’t want to race because I am in the 500 already,’ he didn’t want to wreck his car. I respect that. It is just a starting spot. You can go from the front to the back in this race. It doesn’t matter if you start 12th or 20th. It is all kind of the same. You are going to have multiple people you can work with come Sunday.”
HOW FREQUENTLY DO YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT YOUR WATER TEMPERATURE GUAGE HERE AS COMPARED TO A TYPICAL NASCAR WEEKEND? “The answer is kind of a two-part question. Restrictor plate racing you have to pay attention to the temperature gauge a lot more often than other race tracks, because you are always in a pack. Now, being against a guy 24-7, you have to just constantly monitor it. That is all I am looking at, pushing him straight and looking up and down at the gauge. I am starting to get a better feel so that I don’t have to look at the gauge as much. I am getting a better feel for how hot it is or should be and how much I have been able to move out and get air in it. I have a pretty good idea now. I don’t have to look at it quite as much. You have to monitor a tremendous about more than a normal restrictor plate race. On a regular weekend we would look at it about every 20 or 30 laps or so just to make sure we don’t have a bag on the grill or something.”
HOW MANY DRIVERS CAN YOU LISTEN TO ON THE RADIO OUT THERE? “We have eight channels on our radios. We have our teammates on there as primary channels, but we also have two radios. We have a primary and a spare. We can take that spare and put other channels in it to monitor it. We can only talk and receive on one channel, being in the car. We can’t scan multiple channels, or talk on multiple channels. Lord knows I don’t think I could manage that either. I was on Carl’s channel, so I would be listening to his spotter and Carl and then his crew chief says something that scares me to death because I can’t understand him and I didn’t know what he was saying. It is different. It is something I have never been involved in before. It makes it interesting for us all that is for sure.”
DO YOU PUT LIGHTS ON YOUR WATER TEMPERATURE GAUGE? “Yeah. Those are dummy gauges, we like to call them. They turn red when it is over temperature and then it will flash, that is the dumb effect, that you are about to burn it up. They are fun gauges. They help us out a lot. We don’t have to think anymore.”
