CUP: Charlotte Chase Notebook

Sprint Cup

CUP: Charlotte Chase Notebook

Greg Biffle had his best finish of the 2012 Chase with a fourth-place run…

Tom Jensen | Posted October 14, 2012 Concord, NC

Ryan Newman (Left) talks to Greg Biffle (Right) in the garage area during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)

BIFFLE BAFFLED — Greg Biffle had a good run in Saturday night’s Bank of America 500, where he qualified on the pole and finished fourth, his best result in the five races run so far in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

But Biffle was left scratching his head over the fact that his Roush Fenway Racing Ford didn’t get the kind of fuel mileage that race-winner Clint Bowyer and some others got.

“It’s amazing that those guys can go that far on a tank of gas,” Biffle said. “It’s just unbelievable, but we had a really fast car. … We started turning the fastest lap times, but we had so much track position to make up, and then you can’t beat the fuel mileage. We’re just not in that game to be able to go as far as those guys were going. It hurts to get beat on fuel mileage, but we were the first car behind the three that made it on fuel mileage, so I feel pretty good with fourth.”

One thing Biffle is learning: Making up positions in the Chase isn’t nearly as hard as making up points. After the first three Chase races, Biffle was 11th in points, 51 behind leader Brad Keselowski. In the last two races, Biffle has finished ahead of Keselowski both times and moved all the way to sixth in the standings, but he’s 43 points behind Keselowski. So in two races, Biffle has made up five positions but only eight points.

KESELOWSKI STILL ON OFFENSE — Despite losing the lead and the race when he ran out of fuel on Lap 276 of 334 at the Bank of America 500, points leader Brad Keselowski said his Penske Racing team will continue to race aggressively over the final five races of the season.

“This 2 team, I know I speak for myself and I think it speaks for everybody else, we’re not going to play defense,” said Keselowski, who finished 11th at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “We’re not going to put the prevent defense out there. We’re going to go at you and we’re going to try to sack the quarterback every time and sometimes you’re going to miss and they’re going to get a big play off. We’ve hit ‘em a lot. That’s why we’re in the points lead and we’re going to keep after ‘em.”

Paul Wolfe, Keselowski’s crew chief, agreed 100 percent with his driver.

“What got us to this point was being aggressive with our strategy and how we run a race,” said Wolfe. “We aren’t going to change that approach as we run down through the end of this championship Chase. Ninety percent of the time it works out for us and we get the finishes we want. Tonight, we missed it a little bit.”

HAMLIN NO FAN OF FUEL RUNS — Denny Hamlin finished second in Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 to keep himself firmly in championship contention. But Hamlin had to back way off to save fuel late in the race, which might have prevented him from running down and passing winner Clint Bowyer at the end of the race.

“We slowed down just enough to finish second,” said Hamlin, who is third in points, 15 back of leader Brad Keselowski. “It’s frustrating to know whether we could have cut the reins a little sooner and tried to catch the 15 (Bowyer). We just needed one more lap.”

Hamlin said fuel-mileage racing is counterintuitive.

“You are just running the race backwards,” he said. “Basically, you are just seeing how slow you can go and maintain your track position. It puts everyone in kind of a weird window. You have to prepare for it, and we did prepare for it a little bit better. It’s tough because I’m sitting there thinking I could go by (Bowyer) or catch him anytime I wanted. Darian (Grubb, crew chief) is screaming at me to back off. As a race car driver, you really don’t want to save gas.”

CHAMPS OUT OF CONTENTION — Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 marked the midway point in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. In any one race, the maximum number of points a driver can make up is 47. With the Chase now half completed, six of the 12 Chase drivers are now more than one full race behind in points: Martin Truex Jr. (-49) is seventh in points, followed by Tony Stewart (-50), Jeff Gordon (-50), Kevin Harvick (-56), Matt Kenseth (-67) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (-86).

In that group eight NASCAR Sprint Cup championships are represented — four for Gordon, three for Stewart and one for Kenseth.

SMOKE DAMAGE — Barring a miracle, three-time and defending NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart’s hopes for another title this year are all but over following a 13th-place finish in Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Stewart dug himself a deep hole by qualifying 32nd and things went from bad to worse early on, as Stewart ran his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet into the back of points leader Brad Keselowski during a restart on Lap 16.

“I was following the 2 car (Keselowski) there, and he had to check up, big time, for whatever was going on in front of him,” said Stewart. “Man, I drilled him. And the further back you were, the worse it made it. It really screwed up the nose of our racecar.”

Stewart did well to work his way back to the top 15. “I’m really proud of our guys here at Stewart-Haas Racing,” Stewart said. “This Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevy was pretty good. That’s the best we’ve been here for a while. I’m proud of the effort of these guys. I thought we might get a top-10 out of it tonight, but I’ll take this.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.

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Tom Jensen

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