Greg Biffle made the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Chase but never won a race in 2009. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Biffle made the cut for the championship-determining field on the strength of eight top-fives and 12 top-10s in the 26-race regular season but started the Chase seeded last among the dozen drivers when the bonus points for wins were added to each of the contenders’ totals.

He gained five points positions on the strength four top-10s and finished outside the top 20 just once in the 10 Chase events.

Biffle narrowly missed out on a top-five points outcome, finishing 43 points behind fifth-place Denny Hamlin and 17 behind sixth-place Tony Stewart. Hamlin won the season’s final race at Homestead-Miami Speedway while Stewart rallied from an accident to finish 22nd.

“Obviously the highlight of our season [was] making the Chase,” says Biffle, who was 14th in the season finale. “We wanted to be in the top five in points. We were at one point at the race in Homestead – we were in fifth – but with Tony coming back a little bit and Denny winning the race we lost those two spots and ended up seventh.

“So overall, a satisfactory year. Making the Chase is important, but we want to win races, and we want to compete for the title.”

Even while running solidly in the Chase, Biffle never made a serious bid for the championship a year after winning the first two Chase races and finishing third in the final standings.

Does he believe his group, and Roush Fenway as a whole, can turn the corner next season and close the gap on Hendrick Motorsports, which dominated 2009 by winning 13 races, a fourth straight championship with Jimmie Johnson and taking the top three positions in the standings?

“We’re in a predicament, I believe, because we can’t test anywhere,” Biffle, 39, says of NASCAR’s testing policy that won’t permit testing at Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck series tracks in 2010. “Our simulation is not proving to be enough. Otherwise we’d be competing and winning races now.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do to be more competitive next year, because if we knew, we’d be doing it right now. So, I’m not sure.”

The testing ban, implemented before the 2009 season as a cost-cutting measure, was amended for 2010 to allow teams to test at NASCAR Camping World East and West series tracks. Teams can continue to test at NASCAR’s weekly series tracks and non-NASCAR sanctioned tracks.

“We’ve got to get better for next year. Come [the season’s second race at] California, we have to figure out how to compete on a higher level, and we’re going to continue to work on that over the winter,” Biffle says. “We have a few tire tests we have been invited to, that we’re going to take as big of [an] advantage as we can as a test, to try and get ready for next year. But that’s all we can do, and I’m certainly looking forward to next year.

“Winning races is what I’m after. I wouldn’t trade winning races for being in the Chase, but at some point you do. You feel like, ‘I want to get back to victory lane.’”

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