Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Sprint Unlimited Post Race (Daytona International Speedway)
Saturday, February 16, 2013
GREG BIFFLE POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
“I thought about sticking it in there and it just didn’t look like it was going to work to me. It looked like it would be sparks and parts flying. He shut the door on the top. That is what Kevin needed to do to win the race. I looked in the mirror and didn’t have anyone pushing me. I figured someone might give me a shove and I could try something else. We learned a little bit and we have a ways to go in our 500 car to try to be competitive on Sunday for the 500.”
YOU SOUND LIKE YOU CONSIDER THE BLOCK HE MADE ON YOU PART OF THE GAME. “Yeah, really it is. Joey gave me a big shove and I tried to stay in line. I didn’t chase Kevin downhill and I got a huge run. Kevin was just barely clear of me when he came back up in front of me. When he came back up I had a little momentum so it sucked me up to his bumper. I was pushing him about as hard as I think I could and he could still drive it. I slid to the top on him and it was borderline whether there was enough room there. He was kind of moving up to block and you wish you would have tried it and kinda glad you didn’t. If we are both wrecked and in a pile of parts then neither of us get anything out of it. I was about 99-percent sure that is what was going to happen. Once you are moving up in the corner and then a guy sticks his nose right in there the air pushes the back of your car the wrong way. He was going to go up against the fence. I have been there a hundred times. There is no way that move was going to work. I was still against his bumper and was going to try to go to the bottom but there was nobody behind me at that point. These cars get separated pretty quick.”
YOU KEEP TALKING ABOUT PUSHING. NOT EVERYONE SEEMS UNANIMOUS ON IF THAT WORKS. DOES IT WORK FOR YOU? DO YOU LIKE THE CAR? “Yeah, I like the car. I like the way it drives. It drives well, maybe we will work on the aero package to try to get to where we can run the bottom. The car stalls out really fast and has a lot of drag. You can’t push somebody unless someone shoved you up to the back of them. Then you can. You can stay on them and when you get to a certain speed they just pull off you, just like magically they drive off your front bumper. Like when your engine gets enough RPM it can’t push anymore and the front guy pulls away from you. It happens on the restart and all the time. If you have someone behind you then you can get up to the guy and give him a little shove.”
WHAT IS THE TAKEAWAY GOING INTO THE DAYTONA 500 WITH THESE CARS AND WHAT TO EXPECT? “I heard some guys talk about old school racing and it is a little bit like that but when the car would get kind of a run maybe you would get sucked up there and pull out, the car would continue to kind of accelerate before it died off with its momentum. Now it seems like the car, you get a run and you side draft a guy and pull out there and it is like you put the brakes on. The thing has a bunch of drag. It is really hard to maneuver and get a run. The thing about it is that when you get 43 cars out there it is going to be a ton different. Then the bottom lane is going to work. There will be a middle. A couple people probably aren’t happy that I went up the middle a few times. The middle actually worked okay for me. I got put in the middle one time and I gained a few spots. With more cars out there I think it will be better.”
IS THE TWO CAR TANDEM OVER WITH? “The two car tandem thing is gone and you will still get some bump-drafting. When you have that bigger pack you will get shoved up to the guy in front of you. It is probably going to be that old school pack like that.”
DO YOU THINK THERE WILL BE A SLINGSHOT PASS AT THE END OF THE 500 FOR THE WIN OR IS THAT DONE TOO? “No, I think you will. We were really learning about this car still and when I was behind the 29 before the end of that last segment I tried a few runs at him. I would back up to Joey Logano and he was probably wondering what was going on. I would back up to Joey’s bumper and the air would just shove me off. I was just messing around seeing if I could do anything. It is going to take more than that. It is going to take more than that to get that pass made. But I will say that the 20, the 14 and some other cars will be able to make that pass. The 20 could drive down there by himself. There are just some cars that have more speed than others. We are going to have to work on our cars to get them where we can do that. I have been in this position before over the last few years. I have enjoyed being one of the faster cars at restrictor plate racing and we aren’t quite the fastest and have some work to do. You can’t be the fastest all the time.”
IT LOOKED YOU AND MATT (KENSETH) COULD HAVE HAD SUCCESS IF YOU COULD STAY TOGETHER BUT HE WAS ABLE TO DRIVE AWAY FROM THE CARS BEHIND HIM. WAS IT SIMPLY THAT YOU COULDN’T GET UP TO HIM? “Yeah, that whole last segment I don’t think I lifted on the throttle one time and never touched the brake. That was as fast as my car would go and he would just drive off a couple car lengths. I was going as fast as I could go.”
IS IT WEIRD WITH MATT OUT THERE NOT AS YOUR TEAMMATE? “Yeah a little bit. It is weird when I look at that car and am completely confused because Joey is driving a yellow car too. I am trying to figure out who is who and they both have 2’s on them. Yeah, it is different but there again, you are going to go with the fastest car. It doesn’t matter who it is, you are just going to try to run with whoever you can. It seemed like the 43 was pretty fast. He was sucked up on my rear bumper pretty good most of the time. They may have some speed.”
