By Jerry Jordan
Motorsports Editor
There were only 10 cars left on the lead lap at the end of the extended Sam’s Town 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and 18 cars out of the race but Greg Biffle was the one who overcame an angry Lady Luck and brought home the checkered flag.
It was a race full of cautions and misfortunes and for a time it looked like no one wanted to win the thing. With about 50 laps to go, one leader after another had their own issues with Lady Luck. Biffle had already overcome a pit road speeding penalty on Lap 30 to fight his way to the front when the car lost power coming through Turn 3 — he was out of gas for the second time during the race. And it looked like that would be the end of his comeback run for the win.
After the race, Biffle said the car wasn’t completely out of fuel but was low and that allowed air to infiltrate the fuel line.
“We probably could have kept running another 10 laps once it was through the carbuerator,” Biffle said. He explained that it is possible that a trap door in the fuel tank hand hung and allowed fuel to run out of the inlet box.
“I think it was a good race but all kinds of things happened,” Biffle said. “It definitely not short on action.”
Finishing second was Biffle’s teammate Carl Edwards, who was fighting Biffle hard for the lead in the final laps — a decision he reconsidered when he almost lost the car in Turn 4.
“About half way through steering left and right, I was thinking I should be racing him more gingerly,” Edwards said. “In a way you race your teammates a little differently but more of that, you are able to swallow it better if he beats you. I thought for a second it was going to be a disaster but gathered it back up and were able to finish second.
“Man it was a wild day from the beginning. There were a lot of wrecks. The Nationwide car, it’s like a slot car and you’ve got the throttle down and running wide open through the corners and you don’t want to let off.”
Edwards also overcame a pit road speeding blunder but he chalked it up to an error with the pace car’s speed, which is how the drivers set their tachometers to monitor their own speed.
“It seemed like the pace car was fast,” Edwards said. “I got caught speeding and I was 100 rpm over. I think they do a horrible job at that.”
His beliefs were echoed by third-place finisher Brian Vickers, who was also busted for speeding on pit road.
“I don’t even pay attention to the pace car anymore,” Vickers said. “I second what Carl said. What I had set was five over so I ignored it and went with our calculations.”
Edwards also contributed the wackiness of the race and the number of wrecks to the down force of the Nationwide Series cars.
“The Nationwide cars have too much down force for the power they have,” Edwards said. “They are like slot cars. The cup cars you can drive them more and control them, at least I am hoping, that we will be able to drive them tomorrow and it won’t be a disaster.”
No comments:
Post a Comment