NASCAR on NBC podcast, Ep. 47: Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer

Two Sprint Cup drivers who are in the midst of their most disappointing seasons joined the NASCAR on NBC podcast to analyze adversity and what lies ahead.

Clint Bowyer, who is 26^th in the points standings, and Greg Biffle, ranked 24^th, were the guests in separate conversations at Kansas Speedway last week.

Biffle, who is four races away from his 500^th consecutive start in the Sprint Cup Series, has taken a leadership role at Roush Fenway Racing, his home since 1998. But while he has been able to help with pit stops, Biffle said there are limits to how much he can help the team improve.

“There are a lot of things I want to change and do different, but it’s tough for the driver to go in and change a bunch of things inside a company and people and realign this and that,” he said. “I’ve been able to make some influences, but I haven’t been able to do all the things I wish I could. I’m not up there on the (management) list and not the competition director. I can only kick and scream so much and push and make an influence where I can.”

Biffle, who missed the Chase for the Sprint Cup for the second consecutive season, said it’s difficult to watch longtime teammates Carl Edwards andMatt Kenseth excel after joining Joe Gibbs Racing over the last three seasons but said, “I’m the type of person who wants to work hard and bring the whole organization with me to be able to compete at the level you need to (perform.)

“There’s nothing more frustrating than knowing you have the ability but don’t have the equipment,” Biffle said. “That’s been tough the last two to three years. You’ll see guys who moved on and won races and championships that I was doing better than when they were racing with me.”

Though Bowyer’s performance marginally has improved with new crew chief Jay Guy in his one-year stint at HScott Motorsports – his 26^th at Kansas snapped a six-race streak of top-25 finishes – he is looking forward to taking over the No. 14 from Tony Stewart at Stewart-Haas Racing next season.

“There’s a lot of things, talk and excitement, for next year,” said Bowyer, who recently began receiving merchandise approvals for 2017. “You’re already starting to think about those things. You have to; everybody in the garage area is. Whether I was going somewhere else or staying where I’m at, you’re already working toward next year.

“That always gets your wheels cranked up again because you’re thinking, ‘All right, man, we did this wrong. We can do that better next year.’ There’s always those things in the back of your mind, so I can’t wait.”

You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the AudioBoom embed below or download and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. The free subscription will provide automatic downloads of new episodes to your smartphone. It also is available on Stitcher by clicking here and also can be found on Google Play, Spotify and a host of other smartphone apps.

FOUR TEAMS SET FOR GOODYEAR TIRE TEST AT MARTINSVILLE

Four NASCAR teams will converge Tuesday and Wednesday for a Goodyear tire test at Martinsville Speedway, the lone short track left on the Sprint Cup Series schedule.

The four teams invited will help confirm the tire compound for the Oct. 30 Goody's Fast Relief 500, the seventh event in the 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs. Those participating at the .526-mile track are:

The Chip Ganassi Racing No. 1 Chevrolet with driver Jamie McMurray
The Roush Fenway Racing No. 16 Ford with driver Greg Biffle
The Richard Childress Racing No. 27 Chevrolet with driver Paul Menard
The Furniture Row Racing No. 78 Toyota with driver Martin Truex Jr.

Two tests remain on the Sprint Cup schedule for the rest of the year.

Another Goodyear tire test is scheduled at Kansas Speedway on Oct. 17, the day after the 1.5-mile track completes its second NASCAR weekend of the year. NASCAR is also scheduled to conduct an organizational test Oct. 18-19 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, site of the season finales for all three national series as part of Ford Championship Weekend.

Greg Biffle, Jamie McMurray prepare for 500th Sprint Cup starts

When the green flag drops on Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway, Greg Biffle and Jamie McMurray will mark an achievement together with their 500th starts in the Sprint Cup Series.

The last time two drivers made their 500th starts in the same race was Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Terry Labonte at Watkins Glen International in 1995.

“I’m really excited about making my 500th start,” said Biffle in a team release. “It’s been a great ride and it’s amazing how fast the time goes by. I’ve got a lot of memories, wins, close races and fun times. I’ve won a lot of great races and look forward to running for that third championship.”

Biffle and McMurray did not make their first starts together, but their careers are intertwined.

The oldest full-time driver on the Cup circuit at 46, Biffle broke into the series on April 28, 2002, in the NAPA Auto Parts 500 at Auto Club Speedway. After three seasons and one title (2000) in the Camping World Truck Series and one Xfinity season, Biffle started in the No. 16 for Roush Fenway Racing.

The native of Vancouver, Washington, qualified 29th and finished 13th in the first of six starts that season.

McMurray’s debut, 20 races later, is much memorable.

A native of Joplin, Missouri, McMurray had 21 truck starts and a season and a half of Xfinity starts with no wins when Chip Ganassi called. On Sept. 29, Sterling Marlin suffered a fractured vertebra in his neck in a crash at Kansas Speedway. The injury forced Marlin from Ganassi’s No. 40 for the rest of the season.

McMurray, then 26, stepped into the car the next week at Talladega Superspeedway, where he would start fifth and finish 26th, a lap down.

McMurray would start fifth again a week later at Charlotte Motor Speedway in the UAW-GM Quality 500. He would lead three times that night for 96 laps. He assumed the lead for the last time with 31 laps to go en route to his first Sprint Cup victory.

Both Biffle and McMurray would be full-time rookies in 2003, with Biffle driving the No. 16 for Roush and McMurray the No. 42 for Ganassi. Since that season, only Biffle has failed to make a start, when he did not qualify for the third race of the 2002 season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

“If I wouldn’t have missed the Las Vegas race I would have won Rookie of the Year, except he did,” Biffle said last month at the unveiling of his car for the Southern 500.

Since 2002, Biffle has driven only for Roush, earning 19 victories (the first coming in the 2004 Pepsi 400) 92 top fives and 175 top 10s. Biffle will be the second driver to make his 500th Cup start at Roush. Mark Martin made his in March 2002.

Biffle hasn’t won since the spring Michigan race in 2013.

McMurray, now 40, is in his second stint with Chip Ganassi Racing after competing with Biffle at Roush from 2006 – 2009. The two remain good friends from their days as teammates, often vacationing together and sharing plane rides to races.

“More of a friendship of any other driver, a colleague at work that you respect their talent and ability,” Biffle said. “A lot of times friendships kind of stay intact … you can usually get over, ‘Hey I cut you off or you ran into you on accident.’ Typically you can put those behind you. We haven’t had too many of those.’’

While McMurray has only seven wins on his record – and none since 2013 – his victories tend to come on NASCAR’s biggest stages.

Nicknamed the “Big Game Hunter” by Ganassi, McMurray won the Daytona 500, Brickyard 400 and fall Charlotte race in 2010. His second Cup win was the 2007 Pepsi 400. He also has two wins at Talladega (2009, 2013). His last trip to victory lane was the 2014 All-Star Race.

Heading into Saturday’s race, McMurray holds the final provisional spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup and is 22 points ahead of Ryan Newman.

Biffle needs to win in order to qualify for the Chase.

BIFFLE HONORS KULWICKI WITH DARLINGTON SCHEME

CONCORD, N.C. – NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Greg Biffle and his No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing team will honor 1992 premier series champion Alan Kulwicki during next month's Bojangles' Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

Biffle, along with U.S. Congressman Richard Hudson and Andrew Collier, unveiled a Hooters paint scheme similar to the orange and white scheme featured on Kulwicki's Ford Thunderbird entries from 1991 through the first five races of the '93 season.

"The sport was built on guys like that," Biffle said Tuesday. "He ran his own deal and wanted to do stuff his way. He had five career wins and a championship in 92 -- that's a really, really neat story. It's unfortunate that I never got the chance to meet him."

The popular restaurant chain began its' sponsorship of the No. 7 team at the fifth race of the '91 season at Darlington. Kulwicki was both owner and driver for the single-team organization.

The 1.366-mile track was also the site of Kulwicki's final start – he placed sixth in '93 TranSouth 500.

Kulwicki, the series' 1986 Rookie of the Year, was killed in a plane crash in Blountville, Tenn., on April 1, 1993.

To possibly win with Hooters on the No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford? "How cool would that be?" Biffle asked. "Then to do an Alan Kulwicki victory lap … would be a storybook ending."

Biffle will be making his 16th career start at Darlington, where he has two victories (2005, '06) and a pair of poles. His average starting position at the track is 11.1, best for the 46-year-old among the 22 venues hosting Sprint Cup Series races, while his average finish of 13.6 there is fourth overall.

He has led more laps at Darlington (718) than any track other than Texas Motor Speedway, where he has led 733.

This is the second season the legendary track has hosted a throwback-themed race weekend, with teams sporting paint schemes similar to those seen in the past. The Bojangles' Southern 500 is scheduled 6 p.m. ET, Sunday, Sept. 4 (NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR).

Hooters isn't just on the car as part of the throwback scheme, the restaurant chain is also taking an active role with the team, helping to promote National First Responders Day.

Collier, a machinist in the Hendrick Motorsports engine shop, has been a driving force in trying to establish a national day of recognition for first responders. His brother, Sean, was a police officer with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013 when he was killed by one of two Boston Marathon bombers.

"Sean was planning on going and hanging out with some friends that night," Andrew Collier said. "He had no idea … that happens to a lot of first responders every year. It's time we honor them; they are our front line here at home. You have an accident … a fire, anything, none of us ever want to see it but if it does happen to us, the first thing we do is count on them.

"It's time to honor them and make this day a reality."

For more information about the effort to establish a national day of recognition, visit www.firstrespondersday.org.

Upon Further Review: Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — If it isn’t one thing, it seems to be another for Kurt Busch at restrictor-plate tracks.

Saturday night he was racing for second when he spun on the last lap after contact from Joey Logano. Busch finished 23rd.

“One day the chips are going to fall in my direction, there’s no way it can’t,’’ Busch said afterward. “It’s almost two rotations around a roulette wheel on how many times we’ve been here and haven’t won. We’ll keep trying.’’

It’s not like he hasn’t been close. He has 10 top-three finishes in 62 career Sprint Cup restrictor-plate starts (16.1 percent).

Saturday night’s race at Daytona only added to the litany of close calls that have kept the former series champion winless in his career in Cup points races at Daytona and Talladega.

Among those races:

— He briefly led with less than two laps left at Talladega in May but watched the outside line motor by. Busch finished eighth.

— He led a race-high 95 laps in the 2007 Daytona 500 before a wreck with Tony Stewart. Busch finished 41st.

— Three times he’s finished second in the Daytona 500, including 2008 when he pushed then-teammate Ryan Newman to the win.

Only Ken Schrader has led more laps (298) than Busch (290) in Sprint Cup races at Daytona without winning a points race there.

The most notable winless driver in a restrictor-plate points race is Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace. He was winless in 72 career starts at Daytona and Talladega after restrictor plates debuted in 1988 (Wallace was 0-for-90 in his career in all starts at those tracks).

That wasn’t the only streak that continued Saturday night for Busch. He did complete the last lap and remains the only driver this season to run all 4,935 laps run this year.

His car’s consistency and speed this season put him in position to be the points leader Saturday after teammate Kevin Harvick finished 39th because of a crash. Busch lost that opportunity with the last-lap incident.

“It’s just a feather in the cap,’’ Busch said of what it would have meant to have taken the points lead. “There are more important things to do. Winning a plate race is one them.’’

FEELING GOOD

Although two of Brad Keselowski’s three wins this season have come at restrictor-plate tracks, he says he feels good about where his team is heading toward the playoffs.

The question is why should he with only one restrictor-plate track in the Chase?

“We’ve had a lot of consistency the last few weeks,’’ said Keselowski, who has seven top-10 finishes in the last eight races. “There’s been some races that haven’t quite been as strong, as well, in fairness, but even the races where we’re not quite as strong, we seem to be right there in that fifth‑ to 10th‑place range, which is a lot of what the Chase is.

“A lot of what the Chase is go run fifth to 10th every week and you’ll find yourself at Homestead, and then you’ve got to go win Homestead. Good consistency is a great trademark of a championship‑winning team, and I feel that out of my team right now.’’

PIT STOPS

— Roush Fenway Racing placed all three of its drivers in the top 10 with Trevor Bayne third, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. fifth and Greg Biffle eighth. It marked the first time Roush Fenway Racing has had three cars finish in the top 10 since Bristol in August 2014.

— Kyle Busch finished second on Saturday night. He’s placed in the top three in each of the restrictor-plate races this season. He was third in the Daytona 500 and second at Talladega in May.

— Austin Dillon finished seventh Saturday night. He’s placed in the top 10 in each of the first three restrictor-plate races. He was ninth in the Daytona 500 and third at Talladega in May.

— Trevor Bayne’s third-place finish was his best result since he won the 2011 Daytona 500.

— Michael McDowell finished 10th Saturday. It marked his third career top-10 finish. All three have been at Daytona. He finished a career-high seventh in the 2014 Daytona 500 and placed ninth in the 2013 Daytona 500.

— Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 13th in the points standings. It is the lowest in the points he’s been at this time of the season since 2010 when he was 13th.

— Restrictor-plate races have not been kind to Chris Buescher this season. He has failed to finish all three this year because of an accident, including his tumble down the backstretch at Talladega in May. His finishes are 39th in the Daytona 500, 37th at Talladega in May and 40th on Saturday at Daytona.

Roush puts all three cars in top 10 for first time in 65 races

While it wasn’t a win, Trevor Bayne got the closest he’s been to victory lane in five years Saturday when he finished third in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

But Bayne’s second top five of 2016 also got Roush Fenway Racing the closest it’s been to a win in more than a year.

The team that hasn’t won since Sonoma Raceway in June 2014 put all three of its entries – Bayne, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (fifth) and Greg Biffle (eighth) – in the top 10 for the first time in 65 races. That stretch started with the August night race at Bristol in 2014.

Daytona began with Biffle on the pole – Roush’s first since Carl Edwards had it at Texas in November 2013 – and ended with Bayne getting Roush its best result since Biffle finished second in the 2015 Coca-Cola-600.

“For our organization to be on the pole this weekend, to have three cars in the top eight, two in the top five, I think that’s kind of a landmark for us as an organization with the struggles we’ve had to get all three teams running strong on a weekend like this,” Bayne said. “It’s not a win that we need to get in the Chase, but it’s a great step in the right direction for making it in on points.”

Leaving Daytona, Bayne currently is the highest Roush driver in the points in 17th. He’s six points behind the cutoff of the 16 cars that will make the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Biffle, who had a pole for the first time since October 2012 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, earned his first top 10 since the September race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last year. That was after his No. 16 Ford received damage in the Lap 90 crash that involved 22 cars that required multiple pit stops to repair

“It was a rough night after we got in that wreck,” Biffle said in a news release. “We got pretty severe damage and were able to come back and finish eighth. We had a pretty fast car, and (Brad Keselowski) was unbelievably fast. We have some work to do still, but I am so proud of my guys.”

Stenhouse came home with his second top five of the year and the fifth of his career. His finished fifth at Auto Club Speedway in March.

Stenhouse had started fourth and was riding in the back when the “Big One” occurred, and he was able to brake his No. 17 Ford in time to avoid it. Stenhouse lined up eighth during the overtime restart before getting a push into the top five.

“Clint (Bowyer) was pushing me the whole last lap. I wasn’t sure that we would be able to be pushed all the way through the corners, but we were able to hold it in a straight line as best as we could,” Stenhouse said in a news release. “The Roush Fenway Racing guys worked really hard, and Jack (Roush) has put a lot of confidence in everyone to get our cars better each week.”

Next week, the series will head to the recently repaved and reconfigured Kentucky Speedway. A Roush car has not finished in the top 10 at the 1.5-mile track since Matt Kenseth finished seventh in 2012.

What drivers said after Sonoma race

Drivers had much to say after Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 won by Tony Stewart. Here’s what drivers said:

TONY STEWART — Winner: “I made mistakes the last two laps. I had just a little bit too much rear brake for Turn 7, and wheel-hopped it two laps in a row. But I felt a nudge when I got down there, and he knew where it was, and (Denny Hamlin) did the right thing doing it there; but if I could get to him, he knew what was coming. He told me he was proud of me. He knows what it means. We were teammates for a long time, and we respect each other a lot.”

DENNY HAMLIN — Finished 2nd: “Just like you heard Tony say, I thought with two or three to go, he pretty much had it, but he made a couple mistakes and allowed us to get pretty close, and then we just both wheel-hopped into (Turn) 7, and I just let off my wheel hop a little bit so I could get to his rear bumper and get him out of the groove just a touch. It was perfectly executed, but I was going through the esses knowing that I needed to get the biggest gap that I could … I didn’t run a low enough line in Turn 11 from wheel-hopping in Turn 7. I got the rears hot, wheel-hopped it a little bit again, got out of line and obviously gave him the inside line. We definitely had a car that should have won, but we were on the bad end of the deal.’’

Joey Logano — Finished 3rd: “I thought I could win the race there at the last lap when you are watching those two going into 7 and 11, and you’re running third.  You think you’re in a pretty good spot to win this thing.  I’m thinking that they’re most likely going to crash each other.  It was a fun race to watch.  Going into Turn 11 I was 100 percent sure that Denny was not going to win just by watching it, and we were right there on the cusp of trying to sneak one by.  It would have been a gift if we got it, but hey, take them anyway you can.”

Carl Edwards — Finished 4th:“I appreciate Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. giving me the space there. Joey (Logano) got loose, I got under him, and Dale was three-wide. It was fun to race. Congrats to Tony; I know he drove his heart out there. It’s pretty neat to see him in victory lane.”

Martin Truex Jr. — Finished 5th: “It was a lot of fun racing out there today. Feel like we had the best car, we just couldn’t get track position. Every time we would get past the guys that we were racing on the racetrack, caution would come out, and guys would beat us out of the pits. Little frustrated with that. Thought we had the car to win, and then that last set of tires we just got in position, and we just got too loose.”

Kevin Harvick – Finished 6th: “I’m just really proud of Tony (Stewart). That is really the best thing. We didn’t have a lot of good happen today. We fought all day on pit road and got a decent finish out of it. But other than that we had a little bit of a struggle with getting it to turn.”

Kyle Busch — Finished 7th: “I don’t know what happened at the end of the race, but thought we had a shot to end up in the top four at least. For some reason there at the end, it blew the rear tires off there at the end on the last run when I was trying to race those guys for the top four. I couldn’t even gain on them. I was just trying to hang with them. We just burned the rear tires off on that last run just trying too hard and went backwards.”

Kasey Kahne – Finished 9th: “We started off pretty good, and I just needed to be a little looser. We were on the tight side. So, we tried to loosen it up and for whatever reason it was the exact opposite. I got really tight then. So then we started going the other way with adjustments. We just kind of gave up the middle portion of the race.  If we hadn’t done that I think we were maybe bet

Kurt Busch – Finished 10th: “We battled really hard, I was somewhat surprised by the lack of grip in the rear of the car. It showed a little bit of that in practice, and some of the other guys had the same issues as far as our teammates. We just didn’t correct it enough. It’s my fault that I didn’t relay the information well enough. Congratulations to Tony Stewart, this is a huge day for SHR. To have three cars in the Chase, to have Tony’s confidence up, to have him battle Denny Hamlin like that this is the best way for a champion like him to go out.”

Jimmie Johnson – Finished 13th: “We were OK. We had the same strategy as the No. 14 going and then we were coming in the next lap, and the caution came out.  It kind of hurt us there to leap frog those guys and the transition we were looking for. We just kind of rode from there.”

AJ Allmendinger – Finished 14th: “Randall Burnett (crew chief) and all the guys Brain Burns, Tony Palmer, all my guys they did a great job.  We weren’t very good. We were pretty junky on Friday.  They worked hard to get this thing as good as it could be. Such a strange race. At one point you think the tires go off and then you find something and manage them again. I thought whatever it was, 25 to go, we were coming. So in the end just a bad pit stop and let the tire get away and penalty. That took away our chance to win the race.”

Brad Keselowski — Finished 15th: “It was a hot day. We had better speed than we’ve ever had before, but I just made too many mistakes.”

Greg Biffle — Finished 18th: “We had about a 16th-place car and that’s right about where we finished. We just fought all day and tried to hold our track position, but that’s just as fast as our car was. It was a really good call by Brian Pattie and the team on how to call the race. They did a great job. It couldn’t have worked out better for us, but that’s all we had.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. — Finished 26th: “We just weren’t very good. We were really good on the long run, if I could save my tires, but I didn’t have any short-run speed. That really made the restarts tough to not lose any track position, but still not wear out my tires. We’ve got to go back to the drawing board for the road course here. We definitely struggled today.”

Ryan Blaney — Finished 23rd: “It was a long day. Early on we short-pitted and got some track position. We had some good fortune (with the second caution), but I gave all the spots right back.”

Trevor Bayne — Finished 25th: “We just ran around 25th all day. We tried some different strategies, but none of them seemed to work, and we never got any track position. I feel like I learned a lot, and we had decent speed at the end. We had top-15 speed, but we just never had track position.”

Clint Bowyer – Finished 40th: “It had to be the ignition. It was a wiring fire. I’ve had oil smoke and stuff like that before in the car blowing out but I’ve never had an electrical fire. Man it shook me out. I couldn’t breathe. I bailed out and the thing starts rolling, so I had to reach in and put it in gear. That’s a great start to the day.”

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Fourteen teams testing Monday and Tuesday at Kentucky Speedway

Fourteen teams will take part in a test at the repaved Kentucky Speedway today and Tuesday.

NASCAR is allowing a car from each organization to test at Kentucky because next month’s race will be the first on the repaved surface. Teams also will use the same lower downforce package at Kentucky as they did this past weekend at Michigan International Speedway.

Teams scheduled to test at Kentucky:

• Jamie McMurray (Chip Ganassi Racing)
• Kevin Harvick (Stewart-Haas Racing)
• Kasey Kahne (Hendrick Motorsports)
• Greg Biffle (Roush Fenway Racing)
• Kyle Busch (Joe Gibbs Racing)
• Ryan Blaney (Wood Brothers Racing)
• Joey Logano (Team Penske)
• Paul Menard (Richard Childress Racing)
• Chris Buescher (Front Row Motorsports)
• Aric Almirola (Richard Petty Motorsports)
• Michael Annett (HScott Motorsports)
• AJ Allmendinger (JTG Daugherty Racing)
• Martin Truex Jr. (Furniture Row Racing)
• Matt DiBenedetto (BK Racing)

After a down 2015, Roush Fenway Racing drivers enjoying ‘new normal’

There’s a “new normal” at Roush Fenway Racing.

After a dismal 2015 there’s more structure, less finger-pointing and all three teams are competing toward the front.

To top it off, Trevor Bayne is getting some sleep.

“Last year I feel like I had to beat myself up a little bit,” Bayne recently told NBC Sports. “I’d be looking at data and having sleepless nights trying to figure how I could drive the car different, and now this year that we have faster cars, I feel like I can kinda do what I know how to do naturally.”

Bayne is 20th in the Sprint Cup standings after 14 races. At this point last year, his first full season with Roush, he was 30th. Heading to Michigan International Speedway, Bayne has one top five and two top-1o finishes.

The biggest sign of improved speed for Roush is in qualifying. Bayne has advanced to the second round of qualifying 10 times and the final round five times. Bayne has an average start of 16.8. His average last year was 27.9.

“Last season I feel like qualifying was one of the hardest parts of my weekend,” Bayne said. “We would be 30th, you know? Hardly making the second round at times, and this season we’ve made it to the final round almost every week, and I think (crew chief) Matt (Puccia) does a really good job.”

The improvements are even more significant for fourth-year driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Stenhouse has started in the top 10 seven times. Last year, Stenhouse started in the top 10 just three times. For the Coca-Cola 600, all three of Roush’s car qualified in the top 10 for the first time since 2013 at Chicagoland Speedway.

“The new normal at Roush Fenway is everybody is working together,” Stenhouse told NBC Sports. “It’s not blaming this department or this department … I feel like everyone has been hands on, in the ditch with each other, you know digging and trying to claw our way out of this and I think it’s been showing.”

Greg Biffle‘s best finish through 14 races is 11th in the Coke 600, which he started a season-best sixth in.

“We’re definitely on an upswing, especially the 16 team,” Biffle told NBC Sports. “The problem is we don’t have any results to show for it. Meaning we’re not able to close right now. So, we’re getting to the three-quarter point in the race, things are happening, we’re getting involved in stuff. Or particularly Dover, the big wreck. Probably had one of the best cars we did all season.”

Biffle isn’t sitting by as the team tries to return to the level of competition it enjoyed when he started racing full-time for Roush in 2003.

That’s included Biffle coordinating pit stop practices among the teams and driving the pit stop car. It’s one way Biffle has committed to show he’s in “100 percent” to build Roush back up.

“I took charge and went down to pit stop practice and told the guys, ‘Hey, I’m going to be here every week for the next month, or one day a week, and I’m going to drive the pit stop car and we’re going to practice other things,’ ” Biffle said. “I recognized that they were kind of stuck in the same old routine and it needed to be changed up. And it brought so much energy and life back into my team that at Dover we had the best pit stops we’ve had in six months. And so then I went to Trevor and Ricky and asked them to do the same thing with their team.”

The more cohesive operation at Roush has the team the closest it’s been to consistently competing since Carl Edwards won at Sonoma Raceway in 2014. It’s seen Bayne, who hasn’t won since his 2011 Daytona 500 upset, lead a career-high 22 laps at Talladega Superspeedway to make his season total 34, also a career best.

After struggling in the back of the pack in 2015, Roush is showing signs it can turn its “new normal” into the kind of success Mark Martin helped create for the team during the height of his Hall of Fame career in the 1990s.

“It takes time to catch up and it’s hard to catch up,” Bayne said. “The guys that you’re trying to beat are also getting better. So you have to make huge gains to do what we’re doing this season.”

Greg Biffle’s crew chief suspended two races for failing postrace Coca-Cola 600 inspection

Greg Biffle will be missing crew chief Brian Pattie for two races after NASCAR levied punishment Wednesday for postrace violations found at its R&D Center.

Pattie was suspended for two races, fined $50,000 and placed on probation through Dec. 31 after Biffle’s No. 16 Ford received a P3 penalty for failing a postrace inspection from the Coca-Cola 600 at NASCAR’s R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina.

Pattie will miss the June 5 event at Pocono Raceway and the June 12 race at Michigan International Speedway.

Biffle and Roush Fenway Racing team owner Jack Roush each were docked 15 points, too.

There was no immediate word from the team on an appeal.

Biffle’s car was selected for additional inspection by NASCAR, which also examined the cars of winner Martin Truex Jr. and runner-up Kevin Havick after Sunday’s race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

What drivers said after Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway

CONCORD, N.C. – Martin Truex’s No. 78 Toyota did all of the talking during the race, but many drivers still had something to say after Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Here’s what they were saying:

Martin Truex Jr. – finished first: “It meant a lot to me. Just kind of sinking in now, you know? We won the 600, so just really proud of my team. Everybody that made this possible and believed in me and gave me this opportunity. Man, my guys are just … they’re something special, so just got to thank all them. This is a big day, you know? Got the troops on the car – it’s a special weekend. It’s really neat to bring – to bring that name home and to victory lane, so just a lot of emotion right not and not real sure it’s sunk in yet but just an amazing day, an amazing weekend for all of us and just a weekend you dream about. … I had confidence. I had faith. I had confidence in my team. I’ve got a lot of great people behind me. Sherry’s (Pollex, girlfriend) – she gives me a lot of inspiration and we just keep fighting. We never give up. We never quit. … It feels awesome. Coca-Cola 600, man, this is one everybody wants to win. I feel like we had this thing won last year when we gave it up and just I don’t know. There are so many emotions, I had to unplug my radio and just ride around and think for a few minutes, because I didn’t even know what I was going to say or what I was going to do.”

Kevin Harvick – finished second: “Yeah, we struggled the first 450 miles, but they kept swinging at it and were finally able to find some tire pressures that were better.  At the beginning of the race, we were just having the same problem getting in the corner and then sliding the back of the car up off the corner, and towards the end we got the car on the racetrack a lot better and were able to really start driving it like we needed to keep up.  I think we’d have been better off if they would have just kept running, but when the caution came out, because we had caught (Truex), passed (Johnson) and then once he got new tires and an adjustment on there, it seemed like he was kind of able to get out in front of us, and we were never really able to make up any ground once we got around (Johnson). … We ran 10th all day.  I’m just really, really happy with when you’re able to take a 10th‑place car at best, for the first 450 miles and make adjustments on it, those are huge gains.  I was just happy we were competitive at the end of the race. We didn’t have the fastest car, obviously.”

Jimmie Johnson – finished third: ““It’s nice when you have a car like that.  I’m so proud of the effort we put in tonight.  This is the best car I’ve had in Charlotte for a long time.  It just shows you how good (Truex) was, and (Harvick) got a little bit better than us at the end.  I thought we had a chance at them a few times, a couple of times on the long run we would get close. A couple times on the restarts we would get close, but all-in-all a very strong performance for this Lowe’s Chevrolet.  Very proud of the team work and the support that we have from all the employees at Lowe’s.  Just came up a little short today.”

Denny Hamlin — finished fourth: “It was a battle, but we kept good track position all day – had one bad restart where I lost some spots, but other than that fourth is about par for us today. The pit crew did an amazing job all day keeping us up front and our car was pretty good at the end. That’s about what we had, nothing else. (Truex) did a great job, and we saw it in practice, he had a bunch of speed and really a lot of the mile-and-a-halves those guys have really hit on something really nice. We’ll go back and work and figure out what we can do to be better, but obviously a good top-five is a good step in the right direction for us.”

Brad Keselowski – finished fifth: “On the long green-flag runs, it seemed like we would be able to move up a little bit.  On short runs we would fall back, but we definitely didn’t have anything for those guys.  (Truex) and (Harvick) were just really fast, and Martin Truex deserves this finish.  He had a good run. It’s a long 600 miles and to come home fifth is decent.  It’s not what we want, but we needed a little bit more to be able to run with those guys. The day to night transition is always a challenge, but some places more than others.  I think this track in particular it’s more about the temperature and how hot it is during the day and the long mileage.”

Matt Kenseth — finished seventh: “We were kind of off all weekend. We obviously didn’t qualify good. I think that’s the worst I can remember qualifying since I’ve been over here at least, so we had pretty good pit stops most of the night. (Crew chief) Jason (Ratcliff) and those guys made good adjustments, and we worked out way towards the front as far as we could. … All weekend, really, just at times we could get the balance sort of OK, but we were way off on the speed and just had a hard time getting a nice corner balance and enough speed to be able to go race the good cars. (On colliding with Austin Dillon) Well, whenever you get hit on pit road it’s a surprise. I was just leaving honestly, and he was leaving his spot and I don’t know. They must have cleared him out of there and didn’t see me or something.”

Chase Elliott – finished eighth: “Definitely a long one, very difficult.  We fought hard and we are trying to get that next little bit.”

Joey Logano – finished ninth: “We got a pit road penalty. You’re trying to make pit stops so fast and you’re going to push everything to the edge.  I guess we jumped off the wall a little bit too soon.  I haven’t seen it, but unfortunately, that kind of made us make a green-flag pit stop, which is really hard to overcome.  Overall, we were able to get our lap back by racing up there, which was kind of cool.  We didn’t have to take a lucky dog or any of that.  We actually raced back to the lead lap, but we lost the balance a little bit on the last run and I couldn’t make much time once we got going. … As it got cooler and cooler out I felt like we lost a little bit of speed compared to the field.  Obviously, the more grip in the racetrack the tougher it was to try to pass, so there were a lot of things going against us there. … Yeah, we got a pit road penalty during one of those super-long green flag runs and had to make a pass-through and went down a lap.  We did a good job recovering without a caution because we were able to pass the leader back and be able to get back on the lead lap and then we finally got a caution, but it was so late in the race and you can only pick a couple off on the restart.  We kind of settled in there and it was hard to pass tonight, so I had a lot better car than ninth – that’s for sure.  I had something that could have finished in the top three or four, and maybe second.  We didn’t have anything for (Truex).  Martin Truex was on fire tonight and really all weekend.  They had it figured out. … We had our own battle to worry about.  There were times that we were racing him up front for the lead on restarts.  We’d run with him for a while and then eventually on the long run he just took off.  We had nothing for him, but at times I thought we were definitely a second-place car, but unfortunately it’s a distant second.”

Ryan Newman – finished 10th: ““I messed up and sped on pit road and it sent us back.  I don’t know that it cost us a whole lot.  I’m just proud of everybody on the Whelen Engineering Chevrolet. They came on board for this race to sponsor us.  Got a decent finish and decent point’s day, I guess, but congratulations to my buddy Martin. He deserved that one.”

Greg Biffle – finished 11th: “That’s all the speed we had.  It was a hard-fought battle and I think we’re gaining on it.  It’s frustrating that we didn’t get up to the top-five, but at times we could run top-five lap times.  It’s a huge amount of progress from where we’ve been, but we clearly have a little ways to go.  Everybody is working hard and hopefully we’ll get there soon.”

Ryan Blaney – finished 20th: “It was a long night, man. A really, really long night. Nothing could go right for us. That was the frustrating part. I didn’t do us any favors speeding on the first stop. I think we got most of our track position back after that. Then we had a green-flag stop, and there was a total miscommunication. The next stop we were able to line up with the lead-lap cars and the left-front wheel was loose and had to come back and change that tire. We just struggled from there on out. We definitely didn’t do ourselves any favors tonight. There’s some stuff we have to work on with the race car. I probably didn’t do the best job tonight.”

Kyle Busch — finished 33rd: “It was a tough night, start to finish. The car had great acceleration toward the end, but we were tight all night and really never able to pass anybody. Definitely not the run we wanted for our M&M’S Red, White and Blue Camry.”

Upon Further Review: Coca-Cola 600

So how to explain why a week after the Sprint All-Star Race was praised for its racing could the Coca-Cola 600 not have similar racing at the front?

Kevin Harvick, who finished second to Martin Truex Jr. in Sunday’s race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, suggests that one shouldn’t be quick to judgement.

“The All‑Star Race is just so much different,’’ Harvick said. “I don’t know if it’s a fair assessment of was it better or was it worse. I think both nights we’ve seen good racing.

“We were able to pass tonight with our car once we got the handling better and make up ground, so I don’t know what the racing was like with the rest of the pack, but I think as you look at what’s coming down the road, I think that the cars were already sliding around a fair amount. They seemed like they slid around more (Sunday) than they did actually at the All‑Star Race. But my car had some different balance characteristics tonight than it had at the All‑Star Race.

“I think compared to last year, we’re light years ahead of where we were, and I think we’re headed in a great direction with the new package.’’

Two of the next five Sprint Cup races — Michigan on June 12 and Kentucky on July 9 — will feature rule changes NASCAR is looking to incorporate next season. The changes are intended to reduce downforce and sideforce, lowering corner speeds and making it easier for drivers to run closer together.

One of those changes is a rear-toe alignment change that reduces the amount of “skew,” or how much the car can be slanted at speed. That change was in place at the All-Star Race but not in the Coke 600, and some drivers said the return of skew seemed to increase their cars’ stability, making it easier to keep competitors at bay and fend off passes.

Sunday, few got close enough to Truex, who led a record 392 of the 400 laps. Truex and Jimmie Johnson briefly dueled for the lead with less than 60 laps to go, but Truex quickly pulled away.

“He wasn’t going to be denied, there was no way around that,’’ Johnson said.

— Each race, NASCAR takes at least two Sprint Cup cars back to its R&D Center for further inspection.

The winner of each races goes except for the Daytona 500 winner  (inspection is completed at the track because the winning car remains in Daytona for a year after that race). The runner-up also goes to the R&D Center. At times, NASCAR selects a random car as well.

Here’s how many times each car has gone to the R&D Center.

Kyle Busch — 5 times (Kansas, Talladega, Richmond, Texas, Martinsville)

Kevin Harvick — 5 times (Coke 600, Kansas, Auto Club, Phoenix, Daytona 500

Joey Logano — 3 times (All-Star, Las Vegas, Daytona 500)

Brad Keselowski — 3 times (All-Star, Talladega, Las Vegas)

Carl Edwards — 3 times (Richmond, Bristol, Phoenix)

Dale Earnhardt Jr. — 3 times (Bristol, Texas, Atlanta)

Martin Truex Jr. — 2 times (Coke 600, Daytona 500)

Jimmie Johnson — 2 times (Auto Club, Atlanta)

Kasey Kahne — 2 times (Dover, Las Vegas)

Greg Biffle — 1 time (Coke 600)

A.J. Allmendinger — 1 time (Martinsville)

Matt Kenseth — 1 time (Dover)

Kyle Larson — 1 time (Dover)

So that’s a tally of 14 Chevrolets, 11 Toyotas and 8 Fords since the Daytona 500.

— All five cars in the Joe Gibbs Racing/Furniture Row Racing alliance now have won a race, all but putting each in the Chase.

— The last Sprint Cup victory by a Chevrolet team was by Jimmie Johnson on March 20 at Auto Club Speedway.

Danica Patrick looks for this weekend to be a sign of things to come

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Danica Patrick grabbed a hold on the climbing wall and launched. She moved one leg up to another hold and the next, moving at a steady pace until she reached the top.

She did it as part of a promotional event for sponsor Nature’s Bakery at the U.S. National Whitewater Center with contest winners who had chosen to scale the rock climbing wall with Patrick.

Her climb toward the front in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has not been as swift, but she feels that tonight’s Sprint Showdown could be a sign of things to come. At least she hopes.

Patrick is in the Sprint Showdown at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Three drivers will race their way into Saturday’s Sprint All-Star Race by winning any of the three segments. The final two drivers in the 20-car Sprint All-Star Race will be selected by a fan vote.

Patrick has competed in the Sprint All-Star Race twice, earning entry via the fan vote. She finished 20th in both races. She enters this weekend coming off a season-best 13th-place finish at Dover.

“I hope we can race our way in,’’ Patrick said. “That’s for sure what every driver wants to do if they’re not in the (all-star race). It’s the most honorable way to get in, but it’s not as though there is not honor in getting through the fan vote because it just means you’re resonating with the fans and they’re showing that they like you and appreciate you and want to see you race.

“I hope that we’re good because, to be honest, if we race our way in, that means really good things moving forward in the season, too. It’s not going to be easy to qualify our way in because there are lots of great drivers that aren’t necessarily already in the race. So, I think that probably overall more than anything racing my way in will mean that I think we’re going to be a lot better moving forward in the season.’’

Among those entered in the Sprint Showdown looking to advance to the Sprint All-Star Race are Kyle Larson, Austin Dillon, Greg Biffle, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and rookies Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney.

NASCAR suspends Kyle Busch’s crew chief for violating revised lug nut rules

In the first punishment stemming from a revised rule requiring five lug nuts on every wheel, crew chief Adam Stevens, who guided Kyle Busch to a victory Saturday night at Kansas Speedway, was suspended for a race Wednesday

Stevens also was fined $20,000 and will miss this weekend’s events at Dover International Speedway along with front-tire changer Josh Leslie, who also was suspended for a Sprint Cup race. Stevens and Leslie were placed on probation through Dec. 31.

Their suspensions run through May 18, meaning both will return for the Sprint All-Star Race.

In a penalty report, NASCAR said the infractions committed by Stevens and Leslie fell under:

–Section 10.11.3.4 – WHEELS & TIRES: All tires, wheels, and all five lug nuts must be installed in a safe and secure manner at all times during the event.

–Section 12.5.3.4.1 g, o – P3 PENALTY VIOLATION EXAMPLES: Parts that are designed to fail their intended use; Parts or system configurations of importance not meeting the NASCAR rules, but not of a nature rising to a higher level penalty.

In an interview with NBC Sports, Sprint Cup director Richard Buck declined to say which of Busch’s wheels violated the rule or whether it had five lug nuts. Buck cited a potential appeal by Joe Gibbs Racing as the reason why he declined to elaborate.

There was no immediate word from JGR on whether the team would appeal Busch’s penalty.

NASCAR changed its policy on lug nuts before the May 1 race at Talladega Superspeedway, requiring that five lug nuts must be installed in a safe and secure manner. There were no problems found with lug nuts after the race at Talladega.

The revision of the rule occurred after Tony Stewart, Greg Biffle and others had criticized NASCAR’s decision to stop enforcing lug nut rules before last season when pit road officiating was revamped. Stewart was fined $35,000 for his comments.