Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Hollywood Casino 400 (Kansas Speedway)
NSCS Friday Quotes
Friday, October 4, 2013
Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 Sherwin Williams Ford Fusion, doesn’t want to hear that it is a three-man race for the Sprint Cup championship and he isn’t one of the three. Biffle, who brings two career wins and seven top-five finishes at Kansas with him into the weekend, would like nothing more than to shake things up Sunday afternoon. Biffle met with members of the media Friday to discuss the scenario.
GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 3M Sherwin Williams Fusion – HOW ARE THINGS GOING SO FAR THIS WEEKEND? “Not very good. We are really struggling for speed. We are really struggling with the front of the car. The car is decent on than that. We just have to get it to turn a little better. We have made an improvement since yesterday but have more to go. We will continue to work and make it better. We still have all day tomorrow. I feel good about the direction we are heading.”
IS THE CHANGE WITH THE TIRE UPSETTING THE SETUP YOU HAD HERE IN THE PAST? “I would have to say so. Maybe not 100-percent. It may have thrown us off a little bit. We unloaded identical to Carl and Ricky with all our cars exactly the same. The 16 car did both tire tests here and were very fast. The other cars are pretty good and we aren’t. We are kind of scratching our head at what happened. So, we will continue to work on it. There is a gremlin in there somewhere. It is a different right-side tire than what we did test here. We never tested this particular right-side tire. Maybe with our car it is just a little bit different.”
WOULD YOU RATHER THEM NOT MAKE THE TIRE CHANGE DURING THE CHASE? “I think they feel pretty comfortable with the way it reacted at the other place they ran it, so they felt like it was a no lose situation to bring that hybrid compound tire to this track. It does take a little bit to bring a tire and you have to test it at a particular race track. They feel pretty confident that it is what it needs to be.”
CHARLOTTE NEXT WEEKEND, HALFWAY THROUGH THE CHASE. YOUR THOUGHTS GOING INTO CHARLOTTE? “You know, it depends if we get this thing turned around this week. Obviously we had a great run last week and slipped at the end there and got the inside restart and ended up ninth. We felt like we had a top-five car for sure. We will see how we get by this weekend. This was a place that we felt like we could win at. Charlotte we feel like we can win and so is Texas. It is a little discouraging at this point that we are having a little speed issue but so are other guys. It isn’t just us. There are a few other cars having a little speed issue. It is going to be an interesting weekend to say the least.”
CHICAGO IS DIFFERENT THAN CHARLOTTE BUT RUNNING UNDER THE LIGHTS AT CHICAGO, HOW MUCH WILL IT HELP YOU FOR THE NIGHT RACE AT CHARLOTTE? “I don’t think it will make much of an impact. Charlotte is its own beast and changes so much, like no other place we go to. It is a fun challenging race track from evening to night and the track does change quite a bit.”
WHAT ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE AT IN POINTS RIGHT NOW. HOW FAR BACK DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAN AFFORD TO BE BEFORE YOU LOSE TOUCH WITH THE TOP-THREE? “I don’t know the answer to that question. It is kind of open ended because if both Gibbs cars blow up this weekend and the 48 cuts a tire there are seven cars that are within the lead. That is probably not going to happen so it is all speculative. It is all based on what could happen. We could finish third and they could finish fourth and fifth. We could go into next week only gaining two points on them. Who is going to get caught up in what at Talladega? Maybe nobody, maybe there is no accident. We all put so much emphasis on one race and maybe nothing happens. You just don’t know. We can only control what we do and what happens for them and what they do is their own destiny. It depends on how they run and what happens and how we run as to if we are in or out of it. If you are within 43 points going into Homestead then you have an opportunity to win the title. If something happens to the leader early in the race and you win. I think that is the way you have to look at it.”
WE HEAR ABOUT THE WEATHER THIS WEEKEND AND CONDITIONS BEING DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT THAN THE LAST COUPLE DAYS OF TESTING. HOW CONCERNED ARE YOU? “I am excited because that means the track will be different. What it has been so far hasn’t been nice to us. I am welcoming a change in the temperature and maybe the track speed or the grip to see if it affects our car different than everybody else. I have a feeling it will. We will just hope for some change and see what it does.”
A LOT OF DRIVERS COMPLAIN ABOUT NIGHT RACES THAT YOU GUYS PRACTICE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY. CHARLOTTE PRACTICES ARE CLOSER TO NIGHT TIME. HOW DOES THAT BENEFIT YOU? “Quite a bit. Ultimately everybody would like to practice near their race time but feasibly that is not possibly a lot of times with scheduling. We get to practice when we can and deal with what the race track does. It will be a little nicer getting it a little closer to race time to try to match up that temperature the best you can. That is what you are going to feel.”
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO KEEP PACE WITH THE CHASE THIS WEEKEND AT KANSAS? “Finish in the top five or win the race. That is the only thing you can do I think to keep in this thing. If one of those guys win you have to be within four or five positions of him to not let him get too far ahead of you and hopefully next week is your week. So far this weekend it doesn’t look like it is ours but that can change dramatically over the next two days.”
