BROOKLYN, Mich. – No doubt about it—Greg Biffle needs a win in the next three weeks if he wants to make the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Biffle’s 2016 season has all but defined Murphy’s Law. Just about everything that could go wrong for the No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing team has gone wrong. From catastrophic crashes to ill-timed pit stops, Biffle has suffered through a campaign that currently finds him in 22nd place in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings.
Though Biffle has finished 39th in a 40-car field three times this season, after crashes at Texas, Indianapolis and Watkins Glen, there is a saving grace. Though the record doesn’t show it, Biffle and his Roush Fenway Racing teammates had shown significantly more speed than they did a year ago, when Biffle finished 20th in points.
Before last year, Biffle had qualified for the Chase in six of the previous seven seasons, but he won’t be able to make the playoff on points this year. With three races left before the Chase cutoff, Biffle trails Ryan Newman by 120 points. Newman, who also is winless, is 14th in the standings and currently in the last Chase-eligible position.
But Biffle comes to Michigan, historically one of his strongest tracks, with a much better handle on NASCAR’s lower-downforce configuration than he had when the package debuted at MIS in June.
“We feel good about going back there,” said Biffle of Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400 (2 p.m. ET on NBCSN). “We were way off when we got there (in June), and by the end of the weekend, we felt like we were running where we want to run.
“So now that we’ve got that stuff out of the way, we can go back now and hone in closer on what we feel like we need. So I feel good about it.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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