NASCAR Cup

Watkins Glen: This Week in Ford Racing

This Week in Ford Racing August 10, 2004 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus, has posted back-to-back top-10 finishes after a sixth-place run at Indianapolis and a fourth-place ...

Published: Aug 12, 2004, 1:52 PM

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This Week in Ford Racing
August 10, 2004

NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series

Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus, has posted back-to-back top-10 finishes after a sixth-place run at Indianapolis and a fourth-place effort at Pocono. He spoke about his team's recent success heading into this weekend's final road-course event of the season at Watkins Glen International.

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus

INFINEON RACEWAY HAS CHANGED QUITE A BIT THE LAST FEW YEARS, BUT HAS WATKINS GLEN STAYED PRETTY CONSISTENT SINCE YOU'VE BEEN RACING THERE? "Yeah, it really has. There are just a few spots that have lost a little bit of grip. Naturally, a race track will typically deteriorate just a slight amount of grip each year that you race there. It gets better for a few years, but as the track gets older it starts going the other way. It seems like it's been pretty consistent. I haven't raced there in the trucks or a Busch car, so all I have to compare to is the Nextel Cup car, but it seems real consistent. Obviously, Goodyear brought a new tire last year that was a pretty decent, so I really like racing at the Glen. I like that race track. It's fun to race on with the elevation changes and it's just a good road course."

MORE OF A TRUE ROAD COURSE THAN INFINEON? "Absolutely. It's the best. Watkins Glen is as good as you can get in my opinion. I've been to Topeka, Kansas. I've been to Portland International and I've been to Infineon, and Watkins Glen - by far - is the best road course I've driven at. It's a great race track and I hope they don't ever take it off the schedule."

THE LAST TWO WEEKS HAVE BEEN PARTICULARLY GOOD FOR YOUR TEAM. YOU MUST BE ENCOURAGED. "I really am. We actually had a better car this past weekend than we showed. We lost bad track position in the pits every time and it's just because our pit box was all the way down at the other end. We'd get caught behind the slow cars still coming in the pits and the cars on the back of the lead lap, and they would slow us down going down pit road and guys would get out in front of us. We would pass a car - let's say we'd pass the ninth-place car and were catching the next guy and have a ways to catch him - we would actually run a tenth-and-a-half or two-tenths better than the leader most of the time catching that guy. Then, of course, you stall out when you get to the next guy. So I think we had a car that if I was out in front and Jeff Gordon was behind me, it's a possibility we had a car that we could run with him, but you never know because we weren't put in that situation. Still, I felt really good about the car this weekend and we were really competitive."

DO YOU FEEL YOU CAN WIN ONE OR TWO OF THESE RACES STILL LEFT THIS SEASON? "Yeah, absolutely. I think we've been in position all year to win them because we've been running there, but we haven't finished there. It's kind of the funniest thing in the world because we truly haven't run poor all weekend, except for a few places we've been. We didn't run good at Martinsville and half of that is driver, and there have been only a couple other places that I can think of. Other than that we've been real competitive and in the top 15 at least. It's just that we've suffered bad finishes all the time."

ARE YOU READY TO GO ROAD RACE IN MEXICO IF THE OPPORTUNITY PRESENTS ITSELF IN THE BUSCH SERIES? "Yeah, I think so. I think it would be good for our sport to explore the race down there. I know they run the Baja 1000 and some other races in Mexico, so I certainly think there's a place for NASCAR down there."

SO WOULD YOU ENDORSE HAVING A THIRD ROAD RACE ON THE CUP LEVEL SOME DAY? "Yeah. If we're gonna road race, we might as well go three or four times a year. It doesn't hurt us. I know a lot of guys complain about it and a lot of fans have a hard time watching the whole event, but if we're gonna have diversity in our sport, we've got to road race. We have to go road racing. We've been doing it forever and we need to continue to do it."

DON'T A LOT OF GUYS GROW UP RACING GO-KARTS AND THE LIKE ON ROAD COURSE-TYPE LAYOUTS? "Yeah. The quarter-midgets are mostly oval, but a lot of go-karts and other divisions do some road-race type courses. Think about the go-kart track you go to at the beach or anywhere else, not many of them are just an oval. They've got turns and braking and other skills involved. I like to road race, so I'm a supporter of it."

-ford-

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