If Saturday night’s performance at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway was any indication, it’s going to be an extremely long and dreadful Chase for Roush Fenway Racing.
In a race where they were expected to contend, both championship hopefuls Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards painfully struggled.
The bright side? Greg Biffle earned his seventh appearance into the Chase with a 19th place finish in the Federated Auto Parts 400.
Edwards the defending race champion had pit strategy backfire on the No. 99 team, forcing them to pit under green and dropping to 22nd when the checkered flag waived.
Both drivers were visibly upset with their performances on Saturday night, but were aware that a lot needs to be done in order to be a predominate seed in the quest for their first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championships.
“I’ll tell you what, it’s got to be the toughest race of my life,” offered Biffle after the checkered flag. “Man, I drove so hard, and we just missed the setup. It was clear that our whole company did, Carl and Ricky and myself. We were way off tonight, which is frustrating because five top 10s in a row put us in this position, but tonight was not pretty. I drove as hard as I could, and it was enough to get us in. I knew I needed to be in the top 20, and like I said, it was all I could do.”
Despite the outcome, Biffle remains optimistic that his No. 16 3M Ford Fusion team will get their championship playoffs off to a good start next weekend in Chicago.
“All we can do is look at practice,” added Biffle. “We know that practice, we’ve got to get our cars right, and maybe we weren’t right leaving the shop, but we tested Chicago, we’re excited about the first Chase race, but this was a little bit of a kick to us. Five top 10s and then finished 19th. That was rough, and there’s some short tracks in the Chase, short tracks like Dover and Martinsville, Phoenix, so we’ll have to go back and look at what we did wrong. 43 car ran good, which is an ally of ours, they use our equipment, so we’ll look at what they did and try Monday to go through what we did wrong and get ready for the Chase.”
Edwards nearly echoed his teammate’s sentiment.
I know Greg, he said that was the toughest thing he’s ever done and I’m telling you, it had to because we were struggling,” he said. “We just missed the setup. A year ago we won this race with our Kellogg’s Ford and we went on to finish last in the Chase. Hopefully tonight’s poor performance will bode well for the final 10 races. We’d love to get our Fastenal Ford to Homestead. We’ve tested at Chicago, we feel like we have something that could be good, and hopefully it is.”
No question that Roush Fenway Racing has failed to gain a heartbeat in times of need, and with little room for error entering the first segment of the Challenger round, miracles can be performed.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
