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The up-and-down season for Roush Fenway Racing was on display in full force Saturday night at Darlington Raceway.
While Carl Edwards, David Ragan, Matt Kenseth and Jamie McMurray were riding high after their finishes in the Dodge Challenger 500, Greg Biffle couldn’t have gone any lower than his 43rd and last-place finish.
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| 'All I want is equipment to drive that stays together,' Greg Biffle says. (Getty Images) |
"This has been typical of our equipment, I guess," Biffle said. "Loose wheels all night, bad vibration, then I think the motor blew up. All I want is equipment to drive that stays together."
It was another maddening ending for Biffle, who came into the race ninth in points and in the midst of a renaissance season after struggling through a nightmarish 2006. But his last-place finish not only dropped him to 11th in the standings but added to his growing frustration.
"It is really frustrating, but, you know what, I’ve just come accustomed to expecting it because it’s just week after week it’s something," Biffle said. "Something breaks. Something falls off. We’ve got wheels loose. We had wheels loose twice tonight. I don’t know. I know everybody is trying their hardest. The guys are digging their hearts out, but the fact of the matter is in this sport and in this day and age, you cannot leave the wheels loose -- not at a place this fast. Somebody is gonna get hurt, and another mechanical issue."
Biffle can become a free agent after this season when his contract expires at Roush and although the team has indicated it would like to keep the driver in the fold; nights like Saturday can make it hard not to look elsewhere.
"I don't know if I can relate those two things together or not," Biffle said when asked about the state of his contract negotiations with team owner Jack Roush. "What I do know is it's real frustrating when I got issues like we got. It seems like it's always something and I don't know why. And I have to wonder, "Why me?'"
Edwards was probably thinking along those same lines early Saturday night when he started the race back in 36th position and was saddled with a car that had struggled since it rolled off the hauler on Thursday.
But he steadily worked his way through the field with his pit crew gaining several spots on pit stops. By the last quarter of the 500-miles, Edwards was in position for his fourth win of the season.
Although he had nothing for eventual race winner Kyle Busch, Edwards was pleased with the rebound and his performance on Darlington’s tricky new asphalt surface. "The new surface is growing on me," Edwards smiled. It’s alright. It was a lot better than I thought it was gonna be. I was a little nervous to begin with. I didn’t like it too much in practice. We were 43rd on the sheet, so I’m really proud of my guys -- all the pit stops."
Sophomore driver Ragan also was the beneficiary of good pit work all night long and was able to post a fifth-place finish, his second top five of the year.
"We had a lot fun," said Ragan, who now holds the 12th and final Chase transfer spot in the standings. "Our pit crew did an awesome job today. We picked up spots every time and it was an overall great run. We’re getting this deal somewhat figured out. We’ve had some good race cars, we just have to fine tune a little bit to try and win one of these things."
Kenseth’s sixth-place run and McMurray’s 11th-place finish were welcome sights for both drivers, who have fallen nearly out of contention for a Chase spot after 11 races. Kenseth moved up to 20th and McMurray 23rd and each our hoping to put together a string of good finishes in the upcoming summer stretch.
"Yeah, I was really happy for our finish," Kenseth said. "We’ve been running so terrible and having such bad luck, so I was happy for our finish."
So were three other teammates. Unfortunately a fourth could not join the celebration.
