By Dick Mittman
allstate400atthebrickyard.com
Friday, July 25, 2003
Greg Biffle wants to do something no NASCAR Winston Cup rookie has done: Win as a newcomer on two of the two best known racetracks in the world, Daytona International Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Biffle, the leader in the Winston Cup rookie standings, already has shocked the NASCAR veterans by stretching his fuel and scoring his first career Winston Cup victory in the Pepsi 400 on July 5 at Daytona. On Aug. 3, he takes a shot at a historic double in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis.
“It would be something else to win two big races in the same year,” Biffle said. “I mean, that would be crazy.”
It was exactly one year ago to the day of this year’s Brickyard 400 race day, Aug. 3, 2002, that car owner Jack Roush announced Biffle would drive a Winston Cup car for him after winning the Busch race at Indianapolis Raceway Park. Today, Biffle is 20th overall in the standings and holds a 201-190 edge over Jamie McMurray in the rookie rankings.
Biffle is not a youngster like recent winners of the rookie honor. He’ll be 34 two days before this Christmas.
But he does have solid credentials. Biffle has won both the Busch and Craftsman Truck championships on the way up the ladder.
“I’ve got a lot of seat time headed into Winston Cup here,” he said during a recent test session at Indianapolis.
The victory in the night race at Daytona suddenly propelled Biffle into the big-time auto racing spotlight. He said it has changed his life considerably.
“You’ve got a lot more friends after you win a race, I can tell you that,” he said. “Everybody wants to have a piece of your time. It’s just really exciting.
“I’m glad I’m in the record books finally for a Winston Cup win. I’m so happy for that more than anything. Whether it be here or Daytona or Rockingham, or anywhere, I got my first win, and now I can move on and work on a bunch more.”
On July 20 at New Hampshire, Biffle came home 10th in the No. 16 Grainger Ford and got into a battle of words with NASCAR superstar Jeff Gordon after the race. He showed he isn’t going to be in awe of the established veterans because he has worked too long to get to the top to back down now.
“I think the team is capable of winning another race this season,” he said. “I never ever would have thought we would have won at a restrictor-plate track like Daytona. But I think the team is still capable of a win, and I think it will come in this second half.”
Biffle is typical of the drivers competing in NASCAR today, hailing from far outside the traditional territory of the southeastern United States. He grew up in Vancouver, Wash., across the Columbia River from Portland, Ore.
In the middle 1990s, he competed in the Winter Heat stock car series at Tucson Raceway Park. There he was “discovered’ by former Winston Cup driver and current television commentator Benny Parsons.
“I’m really lucky for the opportunity I got with Roush,” said Biffle, who noted NASCAR drivers from the Pacific Northwest are “few and far between.”
“Benny Parsons really got me hooked up with Jack Roush back in ’97 to come into the Craftsman Truck series. I was racing the Tucson series. It was about all I could afford to do. That’s where Dale Earnhardt hired Ron Hornaday from the year prior to that. That was a good tool for me.
“I went down there and dominated that race. It drew from about 30 states, champions from everywhere. I won all those races down there, and that caught the eye of Benny Parsons. We became friends. Benny was out there being my agent, so to speak. He was passing my name around to different teams.”
Roush listened and in 1998 put Biffle in the truck series. Biffle felt like he had won the lottery. He said it aligned him to a good team, and by 2000 he had won the Craftsman Truck championship. He stepped up to the Busch series in 2001 and won the title in 2002.
On Aug. 5, 1999, he won the Craftsman Truck race at IRP. Now he has the opportunity in the Brickyard to become the first driver to win in all three major divisions of NASCAR at Indianapolis-area tracks.
“I won from the pole last year here,” he said. “So my streak’s good in Indy. I’ve had good luck here. I think I’ve got a 75-percent win percentage here. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep that up coming back here for the Brickyard.”
He knows that winning on the massive 2.5-mile Speedway track will be much tougher than winning on the .686-mile oval at IRP. He noted that drivers like Bill Elliott, Bobby Labonte and teammate Mark Martin have nine years of racing experience in the Brickyard, so it is more realistic to bid for a top-10 finish and, if he stays out of trouble, possibly a top-five run.
Of course, he thought the same way at Daytona a month ago.
“We got ourselves running second with the DEI car,” he said. “That put us in position for a win. Even if it wouldn’t have come down to fuel mileage, the DEI cars having to stop, we still would have finished second. That was exciting for us, the team, running second and then winning.”
Now if he can do the same at Indy, he’ll have his private niche in racing history.
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