Late Spin Halts Strong Run for Biffle at Auto Club Speedway; 3M Team Moves up to Seventh in Standings

FONTANA, Cal. (October 12, 2009) – Greg Biffle had two straight top-five Auto Club Speedway finishes heading into Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Race. The 3M team was looking to make it three in a row.  Biffle qualified second and ran in the top 10 for most of the afternoon but a late-race altercation with Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne sent Biffle spinning through the infield grass.  The 3M Ford Fusion suffered significant right front damage, but Biffle fought back to finish 20th.  The team picked up one position in the Chase for the Sprint Cup and heads to Lowe’s Motor Speedway next weekend in seventh place.

Biffle rolled off second but quickly dropped back, complaining that the car was “tight center and loose off” and “really greasy on the front tires.”  The first segment of the race went caution-free and Biffle was running eighth when green flag pit stops began.  Crew chief Greg Erwin called him down pit road for the first adjustments of the day.  The 3M crew gave Biffle four fresh tires, track bar and air pressure adjustments and picked up two positions on the exchange.  The field cycled through on lap 42 and the 3M Ford Fusion was shown running sixth. 

During the next 100 laps, Erwin and Biffle struggled to find the right changes for the car.  The 3M Ford Fusion went from loose to tight to loose again, leading Biffle to tell the team he had “no idea how to make it better.”  Biffle dropped as low as 15th but was back up to 12th when the caution came out on lap 184.  Erwin called for four tires, an air pressure adjustment and a large wedge adjustment to try and help Biffle turn better.  Biffle liked the wedge adjustment, but said the change in air pressure made him “way, way, way too loose” on the following run.  After another wedge and air pressure adjustment, Biffle was getting happier with the car’s handling, saying he was “just a hair tight now.” 

The 3M Ford Fusion was 12th on a restart with just 12 laps remaining when Kurt Busch made contact with Kasey Kahne, pushing Kahne into Biffle and sending them both spinning across the infield grass.  The 3M team made three pit stops to repair heavy right front damage.  Biffle was able to finish the race on the lead lap and crossed the stripe 20th after 250 laps.     

“There at the end, we were going to be pretty good with two tires, but then we got in that wreck,” said Biffle.   “We were going to be decent, but we were just off today. We couldn’t get that set-up to work that we used last week, and we kept working on it. We decided to go to the spring set-up, and that’s about as good as we were going to be – probably sixth or eighth, but that still would’ve been a lot better than 20th.”

Greg Biffle and the 3M team moved up to seventh in the point standings with their 20th-place finish in California.  They are currently 188 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson but only 67 points behind Kurt Busch in sixth.  The 3M team will return to the track on Saturday, October 17th at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina.