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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: The Big One Awaits
Calamity is part-and-parcel to restrictor-plate racing at Talladega Superspeedway.
Tom Jensen  |  Posted April 23, 2009   Charlotte, NC
Ken Schrader passes Greg Biffle after Biffle was involved in a multi-car incident during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on October 5, 2008. (Photo: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Greg Biffle isn’t the squeamish sort, or someone prone to hyperbole or trash talking. In fact, he’s about the most level-headed guy you’d ever want to meet. But when a reporter asks him what it’s like inside the cockpit of his Roush Fenway Racing Ford at Talladega Superspeedway, The Biff minces no words.

“I wish there was a seat right next to me (so you) could ride with me in these Talladega restrictor-plate races and see how intense it is inside there,” said Biffle, one of 43 drivers who’ll compete in Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 at the 2.66-mile superspeedway. “You might as well bring a gun with you because you want to commit suicide before you go through all the things you go through on a race track.”

Yowza.

But that’s Talladega and restrictor-plate racing: 500 miles at 185 miles per hour with huge packs of cars just inches apart, furiously dicing for position three-, four- and even sometimes five-wide. Make one tiny mistake and you risk wrecking not only yourself, but half the field, too.

How much stress is there? Biffle can’t get the words out fast enough to explain how hairy and crazy Talladega is. “There’s so much stuff going on all around you,” he said. “You have two cars wide on the bottom, you’re three-wide, there’s a guy outside of you and you’re four-wide. Is there another car looking on the outside of him to make it five-wide? Then the lane moving in front of you, you’ve always got to be looking in the mirror to be ready for a guy to push you from behind.”

It gets worse.

“If you’re not expecting it and that guy bump drafts you from behind, and you’re thinking about moving over just a little bit, you turn the steering wheel a tiny bit, the guy hits you and now you’re crashing, and the spotter is talking to you constantly, so there is just so much going on all at one time – constantly – that that’s how these accidents start,” said Biffle. “You cannot process the information quick enough with everything that’s going on around you.

Biffle knows whereof he speaks. Last October at Talladega, he was at the front of the pack, contending for victory late in the race when an ill-conceived bump draft from teammate Carl Edwards turned him into the wall, taking out all three Roush Fenway Racing Fords in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, three other Chase drivers and 12 cars in total.

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