GREG BIFFLE IN THE NO. 16 GRAINGER FORD SCORED HIS FIRST CAREER WINSTON CUP
VICTORY IN THE PEPSI 400 AT DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY. BIFFLE LEADS THE
RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE STANDINGS BY SIX POINTS (186-180) OVER JAMIE MCMURRAY.
YOU RECENTLY PARTICIPATED IN A TEST SESSION AT CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY. WHAT
DID YOU LEARN? "We didn't probably learn as much as we wanted to testing. We
took two cars there and we feel that we picked the best car to go back with.
Our lap times are off a little bit of what they were last year but we think the
track may have lost a little speed. We're excited to go back. I think that
test might have helped us a little bit. We'll go back there with our better
car and see what we can do."
YOUR TEAM HAS TESTED MORE IN RECENT WEEKS. IS
THE TEAM MORE PREPARED AT THIS POINT OF THE SEASON? "We're trying to figure out
what direction to go with our race cars right now. We're trying to figure
out a feel that I like, trying to get a car that will run good, and that way we
can copy it. Right now, we're building different kinds of cars. None of our
cars are exactly the same. We're trying to figure out what we like or what
works well for us as a team and we're trying to copy the 17 (Matt Kenseth) and
the 97 (Kurt Busch) at the same time we're trying to achieve that. That's what
we're doing, trying to get that better figured out for the second half of the
season."
YOU HAVE A LIMITED NUMBER OF TESTS IN A SEASON. WHAT DETERMINES
WHAT TRACK YOU TEST AT? "We look at racetracks that are similar to a lot of
others, like Chicago. It's a mile-and-a-half, narrow, medium banked. We go to a
lot of tracks like that, or similar to that. We try to pick those kinds of
places to baseline something at. Usually, whatever works there will work well
or fairly well at Kansas and will work well at some other places. We might be
able to take a little bit of what we learned to Atlanta and some other
tracks. That's our basis for figuring out where to go and then places where we
don't run good. We're always run fair at Chicago but we'll target the places that
we don't think we're going to be that good at or need some experience at."
DID THE TRACK HAVE AS MUCH GRIP AS IT HAD IN THE
PAST? "It's hard to say because I haven't tested a Winston Cup car there
ever. From what I remember in the Busch car it felt about the same. That's
about all I have to base it off of but it felt pretty much the same."
DO YOU
THINK WE WILL SEE A LOT OF TWO WIDE RACING? "I don't know. The IROC cars are
going to race there and they may move the groove up a little bit. Maybe by the
time the Cup race comes around it might move up into a second groove."