Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
2013 NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup Media Day (Chicago, IL)
NSCS Chase Media Day
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 3M Ford Fusion, enters the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship with the momentum of a solid finish at Richmond which clinched a Chase position. Looking to be the first driver to win a championship in the Truck, Nationwide and Sprint Cup series, Biffle met with media Thursday afternoon in Chicago.
GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – DOES KENSETH’S FIVE WINS THIS YEAR SURPRISE YOU AT ALL? “To be perfectly honest with you, no. I felt like when he raced for us that we were both very talented drivers. I saw a lot of his skills. Our driving style is probably as close together as anybody I have worked with ever. Matt is very good at getting a car right and running good. I knew if he got in a car that was capable of it that he would put up that kind of performance and he did.”
PEOPLE WITHIN THAT TEAM SAY HE CHANGED THE DYNAMIC OF THEIR MEETINGS. WHAT DOES HE DO? YOU’VE SEEN IT FROM THE INSIDE. WHAT DOES HE DO THAT IS DIFFERENT? “Matt is focused on winning races and competing in a sport. He pays attention. He is from the old school. I hate to say that now but he is from the old school of hard knocks. We worked on our cars. We put our cars together. We worked late at night in our garage. He knows what a track bar does. He knows what the shocks do. He has built shocks. I’ve built shocks. We know what a shim stack does or a bleed hole in a piston. We know what all fo that does because we have experienced it and done it. When you have that kind of mindset and you know all of those things about it, then you can be part of the solution almost. You can think like an engineer, like a crew chief, like the guys that put the cars together. You can bring a lot more too it than just saying, ‘I go down to the corner and the steering wheel feels numb;’ That is hard to fix. When you say, ‘I go down in the corner and it feels like it is on the right front too hard, or I feel like it is rolled up too much or it does this or that or something else.’ That is where it starts to make a difference.”
DO YOU EXPECT TO HAVE MEETINGS WITH CARL AND RICKY TO DISCUSS WHAT IS OKAY FOR YOU TO DO TO HELP EACH OTHER AND WHAT IS OUT OF BOUNDS? “I think we have already had those meetings.”
WHAT IS THE ANSWER THEN? “We basically have helped one another – we had that discussion at Sears Point after Carl felt like I should have backed up to his grille to get the paper off the front of his car at Michigan. We had the discussion of what we do to help a teammate, what we do to help the organization, what we do to help one another. I think we all had an open dialogue conversation at that and we all agree that we help each other to whatever extent we can without hurting ourself. Meaning, we care about our car and sponsor and finishing position but if we can do something to help one another, back-up, get the paper off the grille, maybe let him lead a lap, whatever those things are, nothing has changed for us. That is still what we do and how we handle it.”
SO WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WHAT ALL WENT ON WITH MWR? “You know, I don’t know all the things that went on over there but if a caution was brought out because of the action of a car, that is changing the complexity of a race. That is probably going too far. But to pull over and let a guy lead a lap – like I was racing with Ricky at Atlanta with 10 to go and I was faster than he was clearly. We were racing hard and I was asking for some help. I was like, ‘Hey, we need every point we can get.’ Probably before Joel got down there to talk to his spotter the 17 slid up a little bit in the corner and I got my nose down there and I raced him and got by him. I was asking for help. Just give me the courtesy. Don’t pull over and just let me go but if I get beside you just give me a break. We had one more race to get into the Chase. I think those things are acceptable and we have gone down and asked the 39 car or the 38 car or pick a car. We have gone done before and said, ‘Hey, can you cut us a break? We are aero tight behind you and you are a lap down, can you give us a lane?’
SO IF PEOPLE ARE FREAKING OUT THAT THEY ARE SEEING THIS STUFF, THEY ARE REALIZING NOW THAT A LOT OF THIS STUFF HAS HAPPENED FOR YEARS. WHAT IS THE NEXT THING THAT PEOPLE ARE GOING TO REALIZE THAT HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR YEARS? IS THERE SOMETHING ELSE? “There are multiple layers to this thing. It isn’t like price fixing. In certain situations where you are coming down to the end of this thing or you are asking a lap guy which may be a competitive car but you are asking that lap car to cut you a break. Because some race tracks are really hard to pass. If you catch a car, lets say Kasey Kahne, and he is running good but he is a lap down, I can’t pass him and I would be saying, ‘Hey, go down and ask Kasey if he will cut me a break and give me a lane so I can get by.’ Now I am not going to do that if he is on the lead lap okay? There is nothing wrong with that and that happens in every form of motorsports. That particular scenario happens. The thing you are referring to is bringing out a caution. That doesn’t happen in our sport, in my opinion. That I am aware of at least. We’ve never – that is not in our playbook.”
IF YOU LOOK AT YOUR ENTIRE HISTORY OF RACING, IS IT ANY DIFFERENT NOW THAN IT WAS 20 YEARS AGO IN HOW DRIVERS TREAT EACH OTHER? “No. It is different from the Truck series to Nationwide to the Cup series but it hasn’t changed since 2000. Listen, Sterling Marlin came down to me all pissed off my 10th race or whatever. I know it was 2003, my first year in Cup and he said, I won’t say exactly what he said, but he said, ‘Listen, that damn car is 16 feet long. All you have to do is give me 16 feet.’ Because I am racing the devil out of him and not giving up that. I am 14 feet but not giving up that extra two feet so he can get in line. He was like, ‘We are going to be racing together for a long time.’ Mark Martin is probably on the other end of that fence and I have learned a lot from Mark. Go ask the 39 at Richmond. Go ask the 29. I am racing my race and running as hard as I can run and babying the throttle coming off the corner and driving my ass off and the 29 is running me down like he’s got fresh tires on. I am like, ‘Man, he is fast.’ I am watching him and watching him and he gets to me and I point him to the bottom and I run the top. I let him go one corner and he was gone. I can’t race with him right now. I just don’t have the speed. I need to adjust on my car a little bit. Now, if he wouldn’t have caught me that fast am I going to race him for that position? Damn right. I am not going to pull over for him but my gosh, he was way faster than I was. It is all about respect, courtesy, competition and we want to put on a good show. We want to race each other hard but there are times to give that position or what not.”
IF A GUY BREAKS THAT UNWRITTEN RULE AND CAUSES A CAUTION, DO FELLOW DRIVERS SAY SOMETHING? DO THEY LOSE RESPECT? “I don’t think so. I think he was asked to do that and they were penalized for it. I think NASCAR is paying attention to all this stuff. They are listening to radio traffic. You are going to get penalized for that. I don’t think we look at it any different. We understand it was a situation and keep in mind that the other thing is that this, in my opinion, is a split second decision that was made. It was probably the wrong split-second decision. We have all made decisions in the heat of the battle, heat of the moment, whether it was to knock a guy out of the way or whatever that we look back and say, ‘yeah, I probably shouldn’t have done that.’ You know?”
YOU TALKED ABOUT THAT MEETING IN SONOMA? DO YOU FEEL THAT HAS HAD A TANGIBLE EFFECT? “Absolutely. It has strengthened our organization. We understand each other and respect one another. We go out of our way to try to help one another. If we have paper on the grille, a restart at Richmond Carl let me in line on the bottom. Five laps later or eight laps later I didn’t think Carl was going to pass me and he passed me and drove away. I was like, ‘Well, he got his car going.’ But on that restart, he let me in line or he probably could have stuck his nose in there. I don’t know, I am just saying, you have to have respect. I raced him as hard as I could and he passed me and drove away. He had a faster car. I didn’t let him go. That is part of it. I think that was a watershed moment in Roush Fenway that would make a difference long term. It is good it happened when it did, where it did and how it did.”
IN TERMS OF THE SITUATION AT MICHIGAN OR THE MEETING THAT FOLLOWED? “Both. The situation at Michigan I said it would pay dividends down the road for us because it brought it to the forefront on what we need to do. We had that conversation of if it was right to back up. We talked about leading a lap, doing this, doing that, letting a guy race for the lucky dog. All of those things make a difference.”
IN THE FINAL 10 RACES, WHICH TRACK ARE YOU MOST COMFORTABLE GOING TO AND WHICH IS MOST CHALLENGING? “The most comfortable are the mile-and-a-half tracks like Texas, Charlotte where we run good. Chicago last year was not a great track but I think we will be better this year. The ones I am nervous about are Martinsville, we got three or four top-10s in a row there now but historically that hasn’t been a good track for us. As of late it has been way better. Then of course Talladega. I think everybody probably has that same answer because you can be going along minding your own business and all of a sudden be involved in something. I think that is kind of the scale.”
