THIS WEEK IN FORD RACING

Darlington, S.C. — Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 3M Ford Fusion, is one of the drivers participating in a two-day NASCAR Nextel Cup Series test at Lowe’s Motor Speedway Monday and Tuesday. Biffle, who races at Darlington Raceway this weekend, has won the last two events at the famed egg-shaped track. He participated in the NASCAR teleconference Monday afternoon and talked about going for three consecutive wins this weekend, the Car of Tomorrow and more.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON RACING THIS WEEKEND AT DARLINGTON?
“I'll tell you, I really, really love Darlington, obviously, going there and winning the last two years. And truth be known, it was almost three in a row. We had a dominant car that was probably going to win the last race that Terry Labonte won, it was exciting to see Terry Labonte win there, but we broke a flywheel and we’re able to win the one race prior to the two. We always run very, very good there and I like the race track because it is tough. It’s the toughest race track we go to. It’s a tire management race track, which we don’t have anymore on the circuit except for Atlanta, because of the tire we race on today. And it’s just a challenging, very, very challenging place. That’s what I mostly love about that race track is how tough it is. And people talk over and over again about how difficult that race track is and that’s one of the things that I like about it.”

(QUESTION INAUDIBLE)
“There’s a couple things that come to mind when you talk about that. This just may be rumors that people say, but they say that Hendrick has almost 100 days of testing in the CoT car. I don’t know if it’s true or not, I don’t know if that’s double what they have, I have no idea. It seems pretty farfetched to have that many days testing in the car to date. I do know that they’ve done a tremendous amount of testing and have spent a lot of time working with that car.

“The second thing is, we’ve spent nine days testing. So, a little bit of a difference between how many days spent at the race track between the two groups. The second thing is, everybody said that this car was going to level the playing field for everybody, that’s the whole key to this CoT car, that it’s going to level the playing field and put everybody on the same even keel. It hasn’t done that to this point. It has although, raised up a few of the other teams, which it’s intended to do. The 96 [Tony Raines], the 70 [Johnny Sauter], the 66 [Jeff Green], the 22 [Dave Blaney], they’ve run better as a group than in past years with this car. So maybe it has brought the teams a little bit closer together. But it’s not the great equalizer that everybody suspected it to be to in the beginning.

“The other thing is, you’ve got to catch up. The teams, there’s no way to level out the powerfulness of certain teams and how much technology and how advanced they are. You know, Richard Childress [and Joe] Gibbs put in a seven-post shaker rig which you hear a lot of guys talking technical terms here today, years ago, [in] 2001 or 2000. So they’ve spent seven years or six-and-a-half years, six years messing with this thing. We’ve got one ordered; we’re going to have it towards the end of the year. You know, those are things that have got us a little bit behind, and other teams have gotten behind. The thing that gets you that far behind is having success. We’ve won championships, we’ve won a lot of races without those things, so it’s hard to justify yourself and say ‘ Gosh, that’s what we need.’ Because look at Childress three years ago, Kevin Harvick couldn’t finish on the lead lap, you know, in a lot of those races. Then he wins a lot races, makes the chase and they’ve got their organization really turned around.

“It’s hard to say five years, four years ago that gosh we better get that stuff or we’re going to be behind in 2007. But, that’s what’s happened, that’s what happened. And it’s really hard to catch up. The hardest thing about catching up is it’s like trying to catch up to someone that’s older than you in age; you’re not going to get any closer. Because the more that they learn, the more you’re learning. So you’re both learning at the same acceleration, but you’re behind 'em. So, it’s really hard to leapfrog and get to their level. It’s difficult to do.”

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IN THE TEST HERE AT LOWE’S OVER THE NEXT TWO DAYS?
“Certainly, we’re going to try and see what this track surface is like here. Typically in the past I think that the track’s rubbered up really in the first day and into that night the track continues to pick up speed. And then the second day is really when we really, really feel like we get a chance to see what our car’s setup is really like. And we’re going to be testing two cars, one brand-new car that is the best in the wind tunnel to date, and those are things you like to hear, because we’re always trying to build a better mousetrap. And so our latest version is the best one that we’ve ever had, so that is good for us as a team and as an organization, it happened to be my car. And we’re going to test it against something that is proven, something we ran at Texas [Motor Speedway] and ran very well with. So, we’re going to compare the two cars, pick a car for the All-Star race, pick a car for the 600 out of this test and then we’ll go to those two races the best prepared and [with] the best setup that we can possibly come up with here in these two days of testing.”

LET’S ASSUME HENDRICK HAS TESTED EVEN 50 DAYS IN THE COT AND YOU HAVE NINE, WHOSE FAULT IS THAT? IS IT YOUR FAULT OR ARE THEY TO BE CONDEMNED OR PRAISED? WHY SUCH THE DISPARITY?
“Well, I think that they would have to be praised for being as well prepared as possible, you know. We don’t know, obviously we could all go and find out the facts, but I know Gibbs spent three days at Iowa last week and then Childress or somebody did that—we heard them talking about it.

“We’re discussing internally right now what we need to do, what’s the best approach, what are other teams doing. So that evaluation process starts to come up. I heard that Scott Wimmer has spent a great deal of time at Iowa for Childress, R&Ding and figuring out their cars and whatnot.

“The thing I’m talking about, my theory today is we need to be worried about the mile-and-a-half program right now. We need to be worried about our CoT mile-and-a-half program today. Yes, we have to finish this season out running these mile race tracks this year, but I think we’d be better benefited by trying to start on our mile-and-a-half program now. So when it comes around to all of these mile-and-a-halfs next year, maybe then we’re on a level playing field or possibly we can be better prepared than those teams are. So that’s something that we need to look at strongly now, is not that we sacrifice a season, certainly we’re not going to give up on the mile race tracks that we have left to go.

“We have a test at Dover, and we ran very well at Richmond [International Raceway], which I’m excited about. The only place we didn’t run well as a group was Phoenix [International Raceway]. We didn’t feel like we ran that well there. Matt [Kenseth] ran well, but he didn’t really like his car and he kept his track position and didn’t feel like he was competitive, so that’s where I see we really need to work on. And I think some of the mile-and-a-half stuff will trickle down to the mile stuff.

“I think when we learn a spindle in front suspension combination works well; I think it’s going to work well at Richmond and all these other places. So, it’s kind of hard to worry about Darlington right now when we’re going there this week. There’s not a whole lot we can do. Let’s focus on something that is going to make us better in the future and the rest of the season and be as best prepared as we can.”

THERE HAS BEEN A LOT OF BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN THE NEW CAR OLD CAR. WHAT HAS THAT BEEN LIKE FOR YOUR TEAM OVERALL?
“Well, I think it’s the most difficult on the teams, because everything is different. They’ve got to have two complete sets in the shop, they’ve got to have splitters and all these items and all the trinkets that go on this car and then they have to have all the equipment over here for the old car. You know, down to the seat mounts differently and the mirror brackets are different, because the mirror has to be lower, it’s just so many items that are different between the two cars. It’s very, very difficult on the teams. They are really stretched out and a lot people have talked about, ‘Do we switch next year completely?’ Well, there are two arguments there. One is yes, that would just make it easier for everybody, but the second is, there is only going to be just a few races left in the old car if we just did the two-mile-and-over downforce race tracks.

“So, we’ve got all this inventory that we’ve already got really done and prepared, you could literally have all four cars ready for the whole season and just sitting over there ready to go, and then concentrate on the CoT on all of your mile-and-a-halfs. Because the mile-and-a-half and the two-mile, there’s no difference in the car. There’s absolutely no difference. It’s exactly the same car; it’s the downforce mile-and-a-half, two-mile cars identical. I’ve won at California [Speedway], Texas, Michigan [International Speedway], Homestead, all in the same car. All in chassis 239, so that car can be the same. So as we not worry about having enough CoT cars built for the entire season, we could use, basically we’re going to have nine cars that we could use at four race tracks. Because if we use the old car for those four races, or however many it is. So, you’re going to have a huge amount of inventory for only those. The workload is going to be a lot lighter and easier to manage. Right now, it’s 16 and whatever the number is, so now, it’s chaos. Where as next year, if it’s just a selected number, and you’ve already got your cars basically sittin’ there, that’s what the team owners are saying I think is, ‘hey, we’ve got all this inventory, why not use it.’”

(QUESTION INAUDIBLE)
“Not really. It may be more difficult when we go to California next year, or we go to Michigan and it’s completely different than what we’ve got done racing at Texas and Lowe’s and all these other places, yeah it might be a little bit. But really, it’s about four or five laps and you kind of get the hang of the car or the way it drives and travels and all that.”

WITH DARLINGTON NEXT, AND THAT TRACK BEING SO MUCH DIFFERENT THAN THE MILE-AND-A-HALFS, AND YOUR SUCCESS THERE, COULD THIS BE THE BEST EQUALIZER IN SLOWING DOWN HENDRICK AND GIBBS?
ALSO, EARLIER YOU SAID THAT THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO NOW ABOUT THE DARLINGTON RACE. ARE YOU SAYING THAT DARLINGTON ALREADY IS A LOST CAUSE FOR YOU IN THE COT?
“No, not necessarily. I’m saying that if we sit down at a meeting and think about what we need to work on and what we need to focus on right now, focusing on Darlington—I’m talking about testing and learning and data and what our procedures are going to be—Darlington is this week, so we don’t really have any time to do any R&D for that race. We need to look ahead in the future a little bit more to diagnose that.

“We did a tire test for Goodyear at Darlington, and we got to go for one day, about three-quarters of a day, by the time we got our car ready and got there, because Chevy, Dodge and Toyota got invited to do a tire test without Ford, and we kind of raised the question of why those three manufacturers got to go and not us. And so they let us in there on the second day to run their control tire for a while, and we were the fastest—the 24 [Jeff Gordon] was there, the 41 [Reed Sorenson] car I believe was there, and the 22 [Dave Blaney] maybe, I don’t remember who was there for Toyota. But we were the fastest CoT car there at the test, and ran probably the most consistent laps, it looked like, or real, real close to it. So, I’m real confident that I can go back to Darlington and have a chance at winning again to make it three in a row, because the race track drives a little bit different, meaning we’re not down on the bump stops as much.

“The track drives more like Bristol [Motor Speedway], where you’re on and off the spring and on and off the bump stop more, and the slickness of the race track. I think that what Hendrick kind of has dialed in as much may not be as big a factor there, since it’s a faster place that is slick and you’re on and off that bump stop—if that kind of makes sense. It’s the smooth places where you’re right down locked onto the track, they got that program a little bit better than we do right now.”

SO BASICALLY, RIGHT NOW, IF ANYBODY’S GOING TO STOP HENDRICK IN A COT RACE, DARLINGTON IS THE PLACE TO STOP THEM?
“I would think so. I hope so. Let me rephrase that: I hope so, because I feel like I’ve got a good opportunity to win there. Now, they may finish first, second, third again, we don’t know, but I feel like I have a good opportunity there. To be honest with you, I was a little bit better than 48 [Jimmie Johnson] this weekend at times. I don’t know if they worked on their chassis or not, but I was as good as the 5 [Kyle Busch]. The 24 [Gordon] was right in front of me for the whole run, and I caught the 48 and passed him in one run. And we had a couple of bad pit stops in a row and I got cycled back a little bit and then got spun out by the 66 [Jeff Green], so I don’t think we were that far off at Richmond, even though both finished first and second and were way out front. I don’t think we were that far off.”

DALE EARNHARDT JR. THIS MORNING EXPRESSED HIS DISSATISFACTION WITH THE CAR OF TOMORROW. IS THIS JUST NORMAL GRUMBLING WITH A NEW CAR AND NEW ENVIRONMENT, OR IS THIS SERIOUS FRUSTRATION AND DRIVERS ARE SENDING A MESSAGE TO NASCAR?
“Well, certainly Dale Jr. has a little bit more star power, and Tony Stewart, than I do, so I’ve got to be careful about what I say or I get ripped a little bit more than they do probably.

“It is a difficult car to get do what you want it to do. It’s hard to influence the car to do stuff—it’s hard because it’s all technical stuff. It doesn’t have a lot of travel before the front valence piece hits the ground, so you don’t have a lot to work with there. So, what happens is the thing is on what we call a bump stop, so we stop it from hitting the ground with a piece of rubber, if you will, like a low-rider car that you see going down the road. What happens is when it gets down on that thing, it wants to push. It just wants to push, period. There’s nothing you can do to make it turn once it gets down on that stop. So, we’re juggling, trying to get it turn while it’s on that stop. And then we’re trying to figure out ways to make it do what we want it to do. It doesn’t do anything like the old car does, so we’re working hard on trying to figure it out. But it seems like everything we do—we go test for a day, everything we try doesn’t change the car. So, we’re saying, ‘What do we do with it now?’ But I think as we continue to work on the car we’re going to figure it out.

“We’re going to figure out ways to get it to turn when it’s on that bump stop. We just haven’t figured it out, yet. But I think as time goes on, I think we will figure it out. Will it have to be a change in the design of the car? Ultimately, going way forward in the future, probably. But I don’t think NASCAR is against modifying the design a little bit. We’ve got the concept down. We’ve got a safer car. We’ve got an easier car to tech, eventually—we’re still having troubles getting through tech in time to make it to qualify, but eventually, we’re going to have a better piece. And there’s going to be some adjustment to it, it’s that simple. Whether we give another inch of travel on the splitter on the other side or something, or whatever the scenario is to fix it, we’ve never really tested that before. I think that it’s a compromise. Definitely, at Phoenix, I was yelling about the car, too. I hated it, but nobody wanted to listen to me because I finished 20th, barely. But I was miserable. Richmond, I was a lot better. So, I don’t know. It’s a just a work in progress, I guess.”

THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF TALK ABOUT YOUR CONTRACT. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THIS PLAY OUT?
“Well, there’s one thing comes to mind is to be the highest paid guy in the sport and stay at Roush—no, I mean if you’re dreaming you may as well dream big, right? I’ll say up front to reflect on that subject, it’s not about money, it’s about being competitive. And it’s about being with an organization that realizes their weaknesses and we’re working on them to fix them. All a race-car driver, you go ask 43 guys, what they care about, in that garage area, tonight, and all 43 of them are going to say they want to win—the All-Star race, they want to win Coca-Cola 600 and they want to win at Darlington this weekend. All of them are going to be bullish about their answer. They’re all going to say the same thing: ‘We just want to win. Give us a car that we can win.’ That’s all we care about.

“That being said, yes, you have to be compensated average-wise across the board, but the most important thing is winning and being competitive every week, and having a team you feel like is focused on doing that. That being said, we’re negotiating with Roush on getting the extension done. We’ve got a couple of sponsors on the table that want to come over and be on our race car, and there are other teams that have shown interest in me coming and driving their car. So, I’m pretty sure I’m staying at Roush. The negotiations are going well. I don’t see a reason why I’d be out talking to anybody else at this point, or at least entertaining those ideas until I feel like I’ve gone as far as I can with Roush, we can’t come to terms.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’LL GET THIS DONE THIS YEAR? GEOFF SMITH SAID IT COULD BE THIS YEAR OR NEXT YEAR?
“If we don’t get it done this year, I’ll be announcing where I’m going to be driving in the future.”

HOW CLOSE ARE YOU TO GETTING A DEAL DONE? THERE’S AN UNDERSTANDING THAT GEOFF SMITH SENT YOU SOME SPECIFICS IN THE LAST 10 OR 12 DAYS ON WHAT HE HAS TO OFFER, AND HE WAS WAITING FOR YOU TO GET BACK WITH HIM.
“You’re right; we just got some information last week, and I think that we’re going to discuss the terms with them this week. In fact, I was just talking to somebody today before I came in here, ironically enough.

“That was their first, preliminary offer—this many appearances, this whatever, all the necessary stuff in there. So, we’re just in the beginning stages of negotiating a deal through 2012, or something. So, we’re not close at all about having a deal done. At least 60 days, I would say, have to guess, by the time we back and forth a couple of times.

“I let somebody kind of handle that for me because I don’t want it to distract me from what my job is and my job is to go over there and drive that car in a half hour and try and be the best I can. That’s what I focus on, and I don’t worry about the rest of it. I don’t have any reason to believe that we’re not going to be able to do the deal with them.”

THE ALL-STAR RACE WILL BE FOUR 20-LAP SEGMENTS THIS YEAR. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT?
“I kind of like the changeup of the normal deal. I think it’s kind of fun doing something different—you know, caution laps don’t count this, that, the other. I like it. I like doing something different. It’s challenging for us.

“The thing I like the most about it is qualifying. I think that’s the funnest thing we do all year. I think it’s a lot of fun. It’s exciting, it gets the teams involved. I think it’s the greatest thing we do.”

YOU’RE SAYING THE COT MIGHT NEED JUST ANOTHER INCH OF TRAVEL ON THE SPLITTER. SO, ARE YOU SAYING THE COT IS THAT CLOSE TO BEING THE CAR THAT EVERYBODY WANTS IT TO BE?
“I think so. And I say that because that’s our biggest nemesis right now, we feel, is the front travel, we have to keep that front splitter off the race track, so we’re on the bump stop so quickly. I say an inch of travel; that may not do anything. Here, I’m just guessing. But, I think we are as close as what you’re saying, we are that close to having something that I think everybody can be happy with. The thing is, we want something that drives like a race car, that really turns and we can be more aggressive with it and whatnot. Right now, we don’t quite have that. Not quite. Us, as race-car drivers, we want to have something a little more aggressive driving for a race car. I think that’s what everybody’s really after.”

YOU AND DOUG RICHERT HAD A LOT OF SUCCESS TOGETHER. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON WATCHING HIM STRUGGLE NOW WITH THE 83 TEAM?
“Yeah, it is really tough. I got something I want to talk to him about, and I keep thinking that I’m going to go over and see him in the garage and catch up with him, and they keep missing these races by just a little bit. I know it’s frustrating for him and I feel bad for him because I know that as a team, Brian [Vickers] is a good driver and Doug’s a good crew chief, this sport, it just goes to show you how competitive our sport is today.

“It is difficult. And you don’t what to see anybody struggle, especially somebody you’ve had a relationship with in the past. But, I’m confident that those guys will get it turned around and will be good in the future, and I’ll get caught up with him. I’ve talked with him a little bit. I talked with him at Talladega [Superspeedway] a little bit, but I haven’t really had a chance to talk to him that much.”

YOU SAID THAT THE COT HAS LEVELED THE PLAYING FIELD FOR SOME TEAMS, LIKE THE 96 AND 66. HOW SO?
“You know, that’s kind of funny. I was thinking about this the other day, and I certainly don’t want to talk bad about anybody, but it’s kind of ironic that you take drivers that don’t typically ruin in the top-10 and you put them running in the top-10, and they make mistakes. They get a little over-aggressive. They hit the apron, or they get into a guy, or they make the wrong pit decision, or something happens—that’s all part of a learning process. Because you’ve never run there before, you kind of don’t know what to expect. I’m not saying none of them have never run there, but when you’re put in that situation, all of a sudden, it seems like there’s all of a sudden more pressure, more emphasis on pit stops, more emphasis on everything, and you see guys making small mistakes.

“You know, it’s been really good for them, and I’ll tell you, Dave Blaney, I feel bad for the guy. The guy is absolutely running very well, he’s run very good, and he has been caught up in so much stuff. And it doesn’t seem like, really, any of it’s his doing, a lot of it is not his doing. And I saw the points today and he’s, like, 38th or something, and the guy ran fifth this weekend and got caught up in a wreck and finished ninth or 10th or something. So, it’s amazing how well he could run and then not be there in the points. It has made a difference on those teams, definitely.”