Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 3M Ford Fusion, held his weekly Q&A session in the Atlanta Motor Speedway infield media center before NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice.

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion - TALK ABOUT YOUR SCHEDULE AFTER THE RACE IN LAS VEGAS AND THE TESTING IN PHOENIX AND YOUR MINDSET COMING TO RACE AT ATLANTA THIS WEEKEND. “It’s been a busy couple of weeks because I know a lot of drivers and a lot teams went to California and stayed for the Vegas swing. We elected to do that, so it made it a long event from California to Vegas to the Phoenix test and finally back to the shop. We made the decision yesterday, my pilot told me the weather wasn’t going to be great this morning and asked if I wanted to go Thursday night. I said, ‘No, I want to stay home one more night in bed,’ so we came in this morning. I’m glad to be here. This race track is a lot fun to race at and hopefully this weather will get cleared up and we’ll get on the race track and see how our car runs. I’m just really excited about being here, we’ve had a great couple of weeks and I can’t wait for this race this weekend and to get some more of these mile-and-a-halves, although we’re gonna go to a short track coming up. It will be a while before we get back to mile-and-a-half tracks.” YOU’RE ALSO RUNNING IN THE NATIONWIDE RACE THIS WEEKEND. “Yeah, I just picked up an opportunity, or a kind of reunion tour, I guess with the Curb team now, that used to be the former Brewco. Cub Cadet came back on board for this race here in Atlanta, this is a big market for them. It’s getting to be close to time to be mowing grass with all the rain we’ve had. Everybody’s grass is turning green, I know mine is, so certainly if you need help in that area, go visit the Cub Cadet store and support our program.” DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU GUYS ARE COMING UNDER UNFAIR SCRUTINY BECAUSE OF WHAT HAPPENED IN VEGAS? “No, not at all because each team or car in an organization runs under technically under those kind of situations that couldn’t be team wide. That’s something specific with a certain part of the car. Now, if they said that the bodies weren’t legal and the outside of the car or something that would affect all of us. But if someone has an infraction for an illegal spring or something like that or a piece of sheet metal that didn’t come off inside the car, that’s specifically just that car at that race. Everybody knows that it is no advantage. Everybody knows the fuel tank lid for years has made a difference. We used to have quarter turn fasteners that hold the lid on and sometimes those would come loose. In these cars we’ve had a severe vibration problem with the new car, which is mind blowing why we’ve had a vibration problem. You’ve heard us talk about it in Daytona. Most of the tests, they’ve worked on it. At Vegas, my leg was going to sleep. When we tested in Vegas, my lower calf hurt because the car was vibrating so bad. So, we’ve worked extremely hard on our transmissions, the drive shafts and rear gears to find this vibration and try to eliminate it. They think that’s what caused the lid to come off Carl’s car was the vibration. It’s better than it has been. In fact, my car wasn’t that bad, but they think that’s a contributing factor to why it possibly came off. Obviously a vibration will loosen a bolt or make it break. What happens if a bolt is too tight and then if it vibrates or what not, it will pop its head off. I don’t know. I haven’t seen Carl, his car or talked to any of the guys back at the shop or anything. I came home from the test and came straight here. I haven’t really made contact with the some of the people, so to speak. I went to my shop and caught up on everything and everything personally that I had to do and figure out my schedule for the next three weeks, sponsor commitment and things. I did a media call for NASCAR, so I’ve been pretty busy the last couple of days. I don’t know what exactly the prognosis was on it. But I do find the article kind of interesting that was in USA Today that they had been testing their cars with the oil tank lids off and the fenders pulled down. The Toyotas leaked that, I guess. That’s at least what they claim when I read the paper. I don’t know why they’ve been testing that, but that might be an interesting question -- how they know what all these things do. Obviously we’ve been testing in the wind tunnel and see what they do, and I don’t think we’ve been doing that. It’s one of those things that happens. It came off. It’s not legal, whether it meant to or didn’t mean to, it’s irrelevant. He got a penalty. We all knew he was going to get a penalty. They deserve it because it’s against the rules to have the oil tank lid off. No matter how much we hate to say the bolt broke or whatever else, it doesn’t matter. We’ve had springs fail. No matter how much we want to kick and scream about the springs, they can’t fine or give a spring a penalty. There’s nothing we can do about it.” HOW MUCH HORSEPOWER CAN THAT CREATE? “It doesn’t. It’s kind of confusing. A lot of people don’t understand exactly what it is. And it’s hard to understand for the general public or people who don’t know exactly what it is. It’s confusing because it talks about the engine because it covers where the oil reservoir lies or is mounted in the car. It has nothing to do with the engine whatsoever, or the oil cap or anything like that. It doesn’t do anything to the engine. What it does do is there’s a high-pressure area underneath the car. It lets the air out underneath the car and puts it obviously with the air coming in the cockpit of the car and go out the window. So what it does essentially, if you think about it in layman’s terms, is it would make the car be lower to the race track, if you will. Because it takes the air from underneath car and puts it out on top of the car. I remember a long time ago in Indy cars, when we street raced, they would go over the manhole covers and the suction or the downforce would suck the manhole cover out of the ground. That’s the kind of air we’re talking about that’s underneath the car and it gets that air out from under the car. Now, would it be a measurable amount? Probably not. If you physically would be able to measure the amount of distance the car was lowered the amount of downforce, not really. It will make a difference in the wind tunnel. When you throw air on it and take that thing off, but would you be able to go out on the race track today and make five laps, come in, take the oil tank lid off, go back ouy and make five more laps. We can do that very easily and see if the car picks up speed. Nine times out of 10, you didn’t get the stuff noticeable. We move fenders in and out and change spoiler angles for years and its very hard to feel 20, 40, 50 pounds of downforce. I don’t know that I believe the 170 pounds I read in the paper. That may be a little exaggerated possibly.” WHEN YOU COME TO A TRACK AS FAST AS THIS, THERE A LOT OF TALK LATELY ABOUT THE WALLS. HAVE WE REACHED A POINT WHERE THERE NEEDS TO BE ANOTHER LOOK AT THE WALLS? “I think so. I think one thing that we should do is take that Jeff Gordon crash and Tony [Stewart] and another driver crashed, we need to take that and make an example of it. Even though he wasn’t hurt in the accident, thank God and everything is okay, but we should take that as serious as the accident we had in 2000, and say, ‘What we can do to ratchet our safety stuff up even more?’ Take another look at it. I’m not saying we should stop working on it, but what else can we do to possibly make these race tracks safer? I definitely think there is something to be done. There’s two issues, the first issue is SAFER barriers. The SAFER barriers need to be everywhere, inside and outside the race track, every single track we go to, I don’t care what size it is. Secondly, we’ve got to fix the openings where the safety trucks come out of around the race track. Drivers get hurt in auto racing sports, not from the normal crash, got a flat tire, a guy bumped him and he wrecked. Drivers get hurt from exotic accidents or freak accidents, if you will. The car got turned just the right angle, made it through the opening or whatever happened. Those are the kind of things we need worry about. I think it would be a different story if Jeff Gordon would have hit that wall with the drivers’ side of his car, going the same speed and the same direction in the same spot, it would be a whole different outcome than what the outcome was, so that’s why we need to fix the openings. We know that Kentucky has some bad ones. Two people wrecked there severely bad. Just where the wall turns, it comes back out and lines up. It’s a necessary evil because you’ve got to have safety equipment to get out to the driver quickly and fire trucks and what not, but we’ve got to figure a way of getting it so we can get out on the race without having that flat spot wall. You know the one at Charlotte? It’s exactly the same on the backstretch at Charlotte. Kentucky has one, I don’t know where else. Everywhere has a hole in the wall. You’ve got to get the safety equipment out, so it’s just how that’s designed would be the question. What happens, is if you drew it on piece a paper, you’ve got the wall, a continuous wall. What they do is break the wall and then they start a wall in here, they run it and then they turn it and make it come back out and make it even with this wall. Where it turns and comes out, if you look at that angle compared to your approach angle, all of a sudden, it’s head on now. But if he hits the wall where it’s going straight before or after that particular opening, it’s not straight it would be at a 45. So if you turn the wall at a 45 to catch the opening back up, so we need to separate those two walls and make them parallel somehow with an alley way in them and not have that flat part where it comes back out. If you draw it on a piece of paper then draw the outside of the track, you can clearly see how if he turned in the right direction, he would have hit that thing flat.” DO YOU FEEL LIKE IT IS EASIER NOW THAN IN THE PAST TO BE AT THE TRACK WITHOUT A CREW CHIEF SITUATION LIKE CARL IS HAVING TO GO THROUGH THIS WEEKEND? “Absolutely, 100 percent. Not to say that crew chiefs don’t do their job, but this new car has changed the way we race so much. It’s so much engineering based and everything is so scienced out when we show up. Now, calling the races, that’s something I believe Robbie Reiser is still going to call the race this Sunday because that still takes the crew chief’s decision-making at game time. He’s like the coach, but up until that the crew chief’s role has changed dramatically. Four years ago, it was the driver and the crew chief and they were the cowboy and Indian show, they did the whole thing, then you had the ants working on the car. Now, it’s just so different with the engineers involved, it’s so much more scientific that I think the crew chief plays a little bit less role than he has in the past, but certainly they’re still important as a leader and to keep things functioning. The teams with a lot of depth like Roush Fenway are probably going to suffer less from Bob [Osborne] being gone because we’re organized. We do have a guy that can step in and help us this minute at every race. Chris Andrews is definitely gonna be able to fill those shoes until Bob is able to return.” HAS THE RIVALARY BETWEEN MATT KENSETH AND CARL EDWARDS BEEN RESOLVED? HAS EVERYTHING IMPROVED? “Yeah, I was wondering if anyone was going to ask me about the 16 car, I’m a wealth of information. It’s funny. Always a good comes from a bad -- always. What came from that tiff that those guys had is a more open forum, a more open relationship between all of us, together. And we’ve got a little thicker skin, we can give each other a little crap, you know. I was giving Carl a little bit after the race because he came on my radio on one of the cautions and said, ‘Hey, did you see how loose I was?’ and this and that. What he was meaning is that you drove up on my bumper and got me loose and I was already loose and you didn’t need to do that, is kind of the PG version of what he was trying to say. I said, ‘Yeah, I saw you were really loose, but I had a way faster car than what you did and needed to go and needed to get by you.’ He was racing with the 44, which the 44 was pretty fast, and I was way faster than both of them and I needed to get going. It was kind of funny. I just told him on the radio that I had a faster car than you do and I need to get going. He was too loose at that time in the race. But I did have a very, very fast race car at Las Vegas and I just screwed up big time as a driver. I made some mistakes. I drove from a long ways back to catch Carl under that green flag pit stop. I was two car links off his bumper to take the lead and had come from a long ways behind. When we came back on the track, he was half a straightaway behind me and I drove all the way back to the front again. We had a great car and I was giving him a hard time, then he called me after he won and asked what happened to my faster car than he had. So we were giving each other a little stuff over it, but that wouldn’t have happened prior to Matt and his incident. Since then, it has really strengthened all of us as a group. We’re able to talk with each other and give each other a little crap here and there. We’re a lot better at it.”

Carl Edwards and Jack Roush held their regularly-scheduled Q&A session after NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice in the AMS infield media center.

CARL EDWARDS – WHERE IS THIS NASCAR FAMILY WE ALWAYS HERE ABOUT? EVERYONE IS ON YOU GUYS PRETTY HARD. “You can tell a lot about people by the way they act about things. It’s fine by me if folks want to get worked up about it. Then we’ve got ‘em right where we want ‘em. We’re just racing hard, something came loose, we didn’t pass inspection and we got penalized. So it’s really not that big of a deal to me personally, as far as what I’m going to do in the race car, so it’s almost comical to read some of the stuff. That’s the way it is, that’s just human nature.”

JACK ROUSH – “We went through a NASCAR penalty thing back in 1990, not to drag up old stuff. Actually it wasn’t at that time. When Greg Biffle was found to be with his truck manifold that they said they hadn’t seen all year. So I lined everybody up and we did polygraphs and we verified it was a manifold that they had seen and that we had won races with it and it wasn’t something new and it passed inspection one or more times during that race for things they had looked at. So they had seen it a dozen times. The fact that we could prove that we weren’t culpable that we hadn’t lied was of no consequence at that time. I think really where the rubber meets the road here is that if NASCAR has decided, and I believe they have and I’m ok with it, that if your car is out of variance to the inspection after a race and regardless of whether you’re culpable or regardless if you did it with intent, it gave you an advantage that they recognize, then there is a penalty. We had a situation last year where we had a car that was, God forbid, we won a race and it was too low in the front and too high in the back. Both of those things give you an advantage and what had happened is that it had broken the left front spring. And that tipped that back end up, which puts the spoiler in the air and tipped the front down which put the air dam down close to the ground. And the fact that it wasn’t half cut and it didn’t have a notch in it and it broke was no relief for us because they said we had a performance advantage. And I guess the same thing happened here. We were not culpable, it was not our intent, we did not have the expectation that that thing would come off, but apparently there’s enough cheaters out there that have been playing in this area that they know absolutely for sure how much it’s worth and the fact that there’s an advantage. I support the fact that Carl says he would have won that race with or without that panel being loose. But if is a case of the panel being loose that gave us the advantage and if they want to react to that, that’s fine. It’s ok. It’s acceptable, just do it every time. But every time they have something that comes up that way, I’m not the one suggest they haven’t done that, there is a question about the 24 car being two inches lower or whatever it was at Daytona the year before last, they decided that since the could not see intent, that it was ok and they let it go. Now, it was before qualifying, I think it was before qualifying or at qualifying they found that it was low. And they said that the team didn’t intend for that to happen, so it was all right. But that may be the example of an exception where they’ve excluded culpability from being the thing that would determine whether or not there was a righteous penalty and whether or not the team had got an advantage. We will very likely, from where we see it right now, I will very likely corral everybody, including myself and Carl and Chris Andrews, the engineering manager, and the engineer that worked for Chris and the car chief, it’s very likely that we’ll go get wired up and see if we’re all telling the truth. But the fact is, that we didn’t intend for it to happen. It would be the dumbest thing we could possibly do since every NASCAR inspector on the race track is looking for that panel to be loose based on what the guys did at Daytona. It was not our intent to do that. It was a big surprise that it was there. It was unfortunate that it happened. The only reason I would consider coming back and making an appeal, and I won’t be the only guy that makes that, but my vote would be for making it or not making it, if we verify that the crew chief wasn’t culpable and he didn’t have intent to have that happen, that’s kind of a death sentence for him for six races. We may decide that Chris Andrews or somebody else does a better job, he could lose his job. He won’t lose his job. He’s a great guy. He’s doing a great job, but if he didn’t have an intent for that to happen, they took 100 points off, they took the 10 points off going into the chase, they fined $100,000. Why don’t they suspend me? Why don’t they keep me away from the race track? I’ll go fishing.” HAS NASCAR INDICATED TO YOU THAT THEY DON’T FIND YOU CULPABLE WITH THIS? “No, they didn’t tell me that. But I’m cool with it not mattering. If they gave Robby Gordon’s crew chief, I guess, some leeway based on the fact that they felt Dodge had primarily been involved in the problem he had at Daytona with having the wrong nose on his car, and so they said, ‘The crew chief can go back because we decided it wasn’t his fault.’ I think the same logic might flow toward Bob. If it worked for Robby Gordon’s crew chief, then Bob might be cleared of wrongdoing as well.”

CARL EDWARDS CONTINUED – DO YOU THINK WINS SHOULD BE TAKEN AWAY AT SOME POINT? “What are you supposed to do, turn back time or something? We crossed the finish line first. They took 100 points. They took 10 out of the chase and $100,000. We didn’t get what you get when you win a race, so I don’t know what else you’re supposed to do. Guys, it’s really simple. Something came loose. It wasn’t legal. We got our penalty. I swear on whatever we can swear on that it was not an intentional thing. That’s the way it goes. I don’t even feel like I should sit up here. It doesn’t change anything I’m gonna do. I just go out and drive the race car as fast as I can. It’s not my responsibility to tighten that bolt.”

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – DO THE RECENT DECISIONS ON THE NATIONWIDE TEAMS MAKE IT MORE LIKELY YOU’LL APPEAL? “The only basis that I see for an appeal, and as I said we’ll have outside counsel or inside counsel and our general manager will all have a vote in it, as well as me, and I won’t have the vote that counts, I’ll just have a vote. But if we have the prospect of getting Bob Osborne back and putting the team back on track, I think it’s likely we’ll appeal. The idea of saying that we’re gonna turn them around based on the lack of intent on the 100 points, I think that ship has sailed. I think we’ve got no interest. The fact is, I’ve appealed not less than four and probably more than six times in the 22 years I’ve been in this business and I’ve gotten relief exactly zero times, in spite of the fact that the facts were in my favor many times. So the facts don’t have a lot to do with it. It’s pretty much what they want to do. It’s their court and it’s their ball field and it’s their ball and it’s their bat, and I’m just glad to have a chance to catch it once in a while and to swing at it.”

CARL EDWARDS CONTINUED – WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THE CREW AND HOW DO YOU STAY POSITIVE? “The greatest thing is if we weren’t there, Matt Kenseth probably would have won the race. If Matt wasn’t there, Greg might have won the race. We’ve got the greatest cars out there in these Ford Fusions. We’re doing really well. We’re doing everything right. Obviously, these mistakes are not good that we made on pit road and that we made with that panel, but that’s what I’m excited about. We’re three races in and we’ve got two wins and that’s the best start to any season that I’ve ever had in my life, so I feel like we’ve got a whole bunch to look forward to. I’m real excited about it.” HOW DIFFICULT IS IT NOT TO LET THIS BE A DISTRACTION? “I believe the last year or two I believe I’ve been hardened a lot. The only distraction is having to come over here and sit down and talk about it. I have a very simple job and that’s not to make any mistakes in that race car and go as fast as I can, so that’s what I keep doing. I get my joy out of doing that job well, so for me personally, it’s more of just a nuisance to have to come over here and talk about this because I know what happened and it really doesn’t matter to me what other people say about it. It would be really silly for me to let that bother me when we have such a great team and so much to look forward to.” BIFFLE FELT A LOT OF YOUR RESURGENCE HAS TO DO WITH ROBBIE REISER. “It’s great for Robbie to do that. I have a lot of respect for Robbie and that 17 team, Matt especially for being able to sacrifice in the short term for us to be better. It’s really cool. Bob is gone but we just talked to him on the phone and the depth that we have there, to have Chris Andrews come and be the engineer and to have Robbie raise his hand and say, ‘Hey, I want to come out here and help you guys on Sunday,’ it’s a huge deal for me. It’s good to have Robbie in that position and I think Greg is exactly right. That’s one of the big factors.”

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – “I’d like to comment on that, if I could. Robbie Reiser is doing a great job, but there hasn’t been a cultural change. We haven’t had a different manufacturer affiliation. Ford Motor Company still streams us the technology we need. The same guys are building the cars. Some of the same people are still pitting the cars, and that may be part of our problem. We’re continually reviewing how we’re doing on pit road and that may be one of the areas we’ve made least gain on over the winter, that’s got our focus, but Robbie has picked up the reins that Max Jones laid down. He has brought with him strengths in manufacturing. He’s brought strengths with him in team building. He’s brought with him strengths in interviewing people that has been his forte on the race team and with the background he had from his father and their manufacturing business, and we’ve gotten to be a stronger company from that. But Max Jones and the management that preceded him had strengths as well that were different and they made their mark on the organization that’s made it strong and deep. It’s great to have Robbie and I hope that giving him the shot to help Carl in the race on Sunday doesn’t make him want to be a crew chief enough that he rescinds his agreement he had to come and do this. But Robbie is doing a great job. The team is deep and we’ve got people behind Robbie that are doing a great job that are ready to grow into expanded roles in the organization, so I’m real proud of what we’re doing. It’s not because of any one person that we’ve got the performance we’ve got this year. It’s because everybody has done a great job.” HOW MUCH OF A SAFETY RISK IS IT FOR HOT AIR TO BE SUCKED INTO THE COCKPIT THROUGH THE OIL TANK LID OPENING IN THE EVENT OF THE FIRE AND A DRIVER SAID THE BOLTS ON THE SIDE WINDOW WERE LOOSE. CAN YOU COMMENT? “I’ve heard the claim that the locking tabs for the side window were loose. That gives me heartburn. There was certainly no intent to do that. If those came loose, we’ve got to re-think the kind of retainers we use. Those are aviation quality retainers and if that side window comes out, it’s a huge problem. There would have certainly been no interest that I had to open up two inch-and-a-quarter diameter holes in the right side window when the entire left window is out of the car with the risk that the window would come out. I can’t really comment on that any more than to say if that did happen, if that was true, it was unintended on my part and I’ll surely make my best effort to make sure that never happens again. The question has been asked what happens if that cap is off and you have a fire and a crash or something. First of all, if you have a crash that exposes a driver from oil from that dry sump tank, you’re gonna have damage to the enclosure. The only way that something could get to the tank to cause a rupture in it is if it went through the enclosure, and once that happened, then all bets would be off and the capsule in that area of the car would be open for the means of the accident. If you had a fire, a fire that you could have in the front engine compartment could come up through the boot for the shifter, it could come in through the window. If that cover is off the oil cooler, it could come in the car behind the driver. Yes, that would be a risk. It certainly wasn’t intended. We intend to have it closed and to minimize all the risk.”