DOVER, Del. - To many among the 140,000 at Dover InternationalSpeedway on Sunday - and even to a few drivers in Nextel Cup carsracing against him - the appearance of Greg Biffle as the driver tobeat was unexpected.
"Where did Greg Biffle come from?" were the first words spoken bysecond-place finisher Kyle Busch after Biffle and his No. 16 Ford hadscored a 4.3-second victory over Busch in his No. 5 Chevrolet in theMBNA RacePoints 400.
"At the end, there was no catching Greg Biffle," Busch said. "Hewas checking out."
Biffle has been quietly checking out much of the season. Sunday'svictory was his Nextel Cup-leading fourth and brings him within 46 ofpoints leader Jimmie Johnson, who finished fourth in his No. 48Chevrolet.
The race was what third-place finisher Mark Martin called "goodold-school racing," in which drivers gave each other room ... well,most of the time.
"The best man won," Martin said. "That's the way racing should begreen-flag racing, plenty of it. The guys who had the best cars wereable to go to the front and stay in the front.
"The guys who made the best adjustments in the last 200 lapsreally are the ones that won the race, because up until that pointBiffle was behind me. So, those guys hit it on the money."
Unlike last weekend in Charlotte, N.C., where these same driversset a NASCAR record for the most caution flags in the sport's 56-year history, this race was the cleanest of the season.
There were just seven yellow flags for 33 laps, and four of themwere for debris. Only one created controversy, that being the oneinvolving four-time champion Jeff Gordon and 2002 champ Tony Stewartas the two were about to emerge from Turn 2 on Lap 42.
"I got into the back of him," Stewart said. "It doesn't take toomuch of a rocket scientist to figure that out, now does it?"
Gordon, who finished 39th and dropped out of the top 10 in points,said Stewart was a little faster and he "probably" was going to moveout of the way on the backstretch.
"Tony just ran out of patience," Gordon said. "The next time Tonyis holding me up, it won't take long for me to move him out of myway."
Stewart saw it differently.
"Everybody else was doing a pretty good job of give and take,"Stewart said. "It's just when you get around Jeff, he always takesmore than he gives. I don't known what it is with him and Jimmie(Johnson) and Ryan (Newman), but it's a group of them that think theroads are named after them - one way."
Stewart said he hadn't planned to knock Gordon aside.
"I just wanted to get close enough that he knew I was there tosay, 'Hey, you know, let us go, and if you're faster, we'll let yougo,' " Stewart said.
The only problems Biffle had were ones he created for himself.First, he and crew chief Doug Richert made major changes before therace that tightened the car much more than they expected and forcedthem to spend nearly the entire race loosening it with wedge andtrack-bar adjustments.
Then, they got it too loose, and on Lap 157 coming out of Turn 3,Biffle got sideways.
"I had the wheel turned, completely locked," he said. "My frontwheels wouldn't turn any more. I was looking at the guy beside me.Then I started turning it back."
He got it under control and kept driving, adjusting his style tothe car.
Finally, after crossing the finish line with an average speed of122.626 mph, he got so enraptured with his thoughts that whileattempting to do a celebratory burnout, he backed the car smack intothe front-stretch wall.
"It was so overwhelming to win today and I was so excited to winand I was thinking about that," said Biffle. "I had a lot of guysriding with me. I had the picture taped to my roll bar of a soldier,Ryan Doltz, who died in Iraq one year ago today. And I met a soldierjust before the race who had lost his leg and he was so excited andenjoying life.
"I was thinking about them, and I hit the wall and I really didn'tcare. It just meant a lot to me to win today."
Biffle drives the National Guard car, and he has been driving itfast since the middle of last year.
Now, he said he doesn't want to be overconfident or arrogant, buthe'd just won for the fourth time in 13 races and he has strongfeelings about his Roush Racing team.
"I feel we could win seven or eight races this season, with someof our good racetracks coming up," he said. "It's a wonderful feelingto believe you have the opportunity to win almost any week."
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