BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Two tires and a radio -- those were the parts of Greg Biffle's race car that most succinctly summed up his afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway. The former helped him score a fourth-place finish on Sunday, while the latter left him offering an apology to a former teammate.
Biffle was one of four drivers who gambled on two tires prior to the final restart at Bristol, and was in the lead when the event restarted for the final time with 10 laps remaining. The Roush Fenway driver faded to fourth, and afterward was quick to offer an apology to Mark Martin, with whom he had tangled earlier in the race and sparked an accident that involved 13 cars.
Biffle and Martin were each running in the top 10 on lap 342 when Martin closed rapidly on his former teammate, and made a move to pass him on the high side. Biffle moved up the track, pinching Martin into the wall, and sending the No. 5 car sliding down the track. Martin ricocheted back up into traffic where he collided with the oncoming vehicle of Jeff Gordon, and cars stacked up behind them.
Biffle took full responsibility, and offered a simple excuse: his radio had cut out, and he couldn't hear his spotter tell him Martin was there.
"I owe an apology to Mark Martin," Biffle said. "This sounds stupid, and everybody makes an excuse, but my radio was having trouble and that whole run I didn't have a radio. I didn't know he was outside of me, and I ran him into the fence over there, and I feel bad. I didn't know he was there."
Biffle's conversations with his spotter after his radio problems cleared up seem to bolster that claim. The Roush driver thought he had made contact with Jeff Burton, who zoomed by on the low side of the No. 16 car just as the contact took place. He wasn't clear that Martin had hit him until his spotter told him.
"My radio had a bunch of static in it that whole run, and I didn't know what was wrong with it," Biffle said. "I had no idea that Mark was outside. I was looking in the mirror, I was listening to [the spotter] and I didn't hear anything. I didn't know he was out there. He just had a bumper out there. I feel really bad. I'm a Mark Martin fan, and that's the last thing I want to do is something like that."
That was of little solace to Martin, who wound up 35th and fell nine places to 16th in points.
"It was time for me to go," Martin said immediately after the incident. "I was going around the outside of him, and he just came up. You know, I was on the brakes, but we were hung together when I saw he was going to shut me off. It is just a shame. Man, I think we had a car that I really believe could contend to win. ... Mistakes happen, but that is a real bad deal for us. It was just one of those things. I needed to go, I couldn't be waiting around. I was waiting around long enough on them. I had a fast race car and was going around the outside and just got pinned up against the wall."
Gordon was one of several bystanders collected in the mess, a group that also included Marcos Ambrose, Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Ryan Newman and Brian Vickers. All of the cars involved were able to return to the race, in various stages of repair. Ambrose ran the remainder without a front end, his vehicle looking like a modified car.
"We were just coming," Gordon said. "I was bottled up with a bunch of cars, and I wanted to go to the inside of them, but wasn't sure if that was going to be a good decision or not. And I went to the outside of [Martin], and he came up, and we all got collected."
Biffle's car survived essentially intact, allowing the driver to make a last-gasp attempt at the race win. Crew chief Greg Erwin made the call to go with two tires on the last stop, but Biffle just didn't have enough car to hold off those behind him.
"I was just too loose," he said. "If I had been like I was earlier, if the car had been driving like it normally did, then I think I could have held them off, I really do. But I was just so loose."
Sunoco Pit Moves: Food City 500
Pos. | +/- | Driver | Points | Behind |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. | -- | Kevin Harvick | 774 | Leader |
2. | -- | Matt Kenseth | 773 | -1 |
3. | +1 | Jimmie Johnson | 760 | -14 |
4. | -1 | Greg Biffle | 750 | -24 |
5. | +3 | Tony Stewart | 685 | -89 |