Greg Biffle, driver of the #16 3M Ford, stands in the garage area during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series GoBowling.com 400 at Pocono Raceway on August 1, 2014 Photo – Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images
The first half of the 2014 season has disappointed NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Greg Biffle and his No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing team and they are working hard to turn it around with a win before the Chase begins. With just four races before the first Chase race at Chicagoland Speedway in September, Michigan International Speedway is where they want that breakthrough victory.
“Well, I’m really excited about going to Michigan,” says Biffle. “You know, we’ve been doing a tremendous amount of testing and working very hard at Roush Fenway to catch up with some of the other teams, and so our week off, our most recent week off, we tested at Michigan and felt like we found a lot of speed that we were missing.”
“It didn’t really carry through to Indy like we thought, but some of it carried through to Pocono, and as we look at that and improve on that, we’re pretty optimistic going to Michigan that we’re going to be one of the competitive cars in challenging for the win.”
After finishing 13th at Indianapolis, Biffle went on to Pocono to finish fifth and at Watkins Glen last weekend he came home with an eighth-place finish, leading to his optimism about heading to a flagship track for his Roush Fenway Racing organization, with their headquarters in Livonia, MI, near Michigan International Speedway. But Biffle tempers his optimism, knowing the potential of his competitors.
“Well, it certainly depends on what other drivers do. It’s kind of funny, when it comes down to this, you’re not only looking at yourself but you’re looking at all these other teams. For instance, if AJ Allmendinger didn’t win this weekend and Carl Edwards or Kurt Busch would have, we would be looking pretty good in the Chase seeding right now with points.”
“So anything can happen,” added Biffle. “You know, one of these other guys that are behind us in points goes and wins another one of these races, it really, really takes our — shoots us in the foot as far as the points go.”
“We feel like we can win one of these last four races, so that’s what we’re focusing on is winning one of these last four and getting our way into the Chase that way. But certainly we’re hanging on by a shoestring to make it in on points if it comes down to that.”
For most of his career, success has come easy at the Michigan track for Biffle, who has raced there in all three of NASCAR’s top series. He says he loves the track and with six wins over three series, that’s seems clear. He’s raced two Camping World Truck Series events and won both races. In the Nationwide Series, Biffle feels his results don’t show how well he ran, with other issues affecting their finishes, and he has four wins in the Sprint Cup Series. So part of Biffle’s motivation to win at Michigan may come from his last visit there in June, when he finished in 19th-place.
“It’s just been one of those racetracks like Homestead or Darlington for us that I really like. I like the layout. I love the way it races, and we’ve just been super successful there,” says Biffle.
“It was really disappointing this season, at the beginning of the season, when we were not competitive in the spring there. That was really frustrating for us, and so we focused on what we need to do to get back competitive on those type of tracks, and that’s why we elected to test there, and we feel much better going back the second time that we’ve closed in on some of the things we were missing.”
Despite the slow start to their season, Biffle feels the No. 16 team’s hard work is already showing their progress in the right direction at both Pocono and Watkins Glen. Now with one of his favorite tracks in sight, he knows his team is even more determined and focused at getting the pay off for all their hard work.
“It takes time. These things take time. It’s easy to get behind. It’s really hard to catch up,” says Biffle. “We’ve stayed the course. We’re a competitive team. We’re about winning races, and we’re not giving up. It would be easy to throw the towel in and say, okay, we ran 19th at our best track, we’re going to give up, and that’s not in our DNA, and we haven’t done that, and I promise you, it’s going to pay off.”
Watch the Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday, August 17th at 1 pm ET. Television coverage begins at 12 pm ET on ESPN with their pre-race show.