Biffle Drives Around Pitfall

Buschwhackers prevailed in the Stater Bros. 300 Busch series stock car race Saturday at California Speedway and Greg Biffle, reading his car perfectly, prevailed over the Buschwhackers.

Realizing his Jack Roush Ford would need a splash of fuel to finish -- and hoping that all the other contending cars would as well -- Biffle made his pit stop with 10 laps left, when pit road was clear, got in and out fast, then sailed home ahead when Matt Kenseth and Martin Truex Jr. waited just a tad too long. Instead of clean stops, they lost valuable seconds trying to get down pit road after their stops in coughing, stalling cars.

“We weren’t planning on pitting that soon but ... I saw the fuel pressure jump around a little bit and when I see that, I know I’ve got about a three-lap cushion,” Biffle said. “I decided not to take any chances. I’ve almost won this race, but I ran out of gas or had to pit for gas and no one else did. It seems every race here comes down to fuel mileage or fuel strategy. I thought, for sure, we weren’t going to win, that some guys would make it [without pitting]. I didn’t realize nobody was going to make it.”

Kenseth, the defending Nextel Cup champion, was leading in his Ford when he stopped on the 146th lap of the 150-lap race over the two-mile track, and Truex, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Busch protege, was leading in his Chevrolet when he pitted a lap later. So when Biffle moved into first with three laps left, and Tony Stewart’s Chevy just beyond challenging distance, all that was left for him was to get home safely.

Stewart finished second, followed by Stacy Compton in a Ford.

As for the Buschwhackers? The Busch series represents the final rung on stock car racing’s ladder to the Nextel Cup series. Sometimes, though, especially on the bigger tracks, Nextel Cup drivers drop in class and run with their Busch brethren. Some, in fact, like Michael Waltrip, do it regularly.

They did it in wholesale numbers Saturday and made the most of it. Of the top eight finishers, only Compton, up from the Craftsman truck series, was not a Nextel Cup regular.

The victory was Biffle’s 13th in the Busch series, his second this season. In a race that lost only 21 laps to four caution flags, he finished the 300 miles in 2 hours 9 minutes 31 seconds, a healthy 5.3 seconds ahead of Stewart, averaging 138.978 mph.

Shortly before mid-race, though, he was wondering if he’d be around for the finish.

“My oil light came on and I had to come in and lost all my track position,” he said. “We still aren’t sure what that was about. We put in some oil and the pressure went back up, then it went back down. There was more going on too. The engine would kind of cough every now and then. The oil was a problem all day, though, and coming from the back, I didn’t know if I could make it. I drove the wheels off the thing.”

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Put Nextel Cup driver Ken Schrader in a Grand National West car, turn him loose on California Speedway and, chances are, he’ll show up later on the podium.

In the days when the series was known as Winston West, Schrader drove six races here, winning two and finishing second three times.

Saturday, he got victory No. 3

Driving a Pontiac Grand Prix, he got the jump on Clint Bowyer’s transmission-troubled Childress Chevrolet on a restart after a caution period, then cruised the last 52 miles to victory in the King Taco 200.

“I like this place,” Schrader said. “My Cup record is terrible here, that’s why we keep bringing the West car.... I hope I didn’t use up all my luck today.”

Bowyer, the pole-sitter, nursed his car home second, and Scott Lynch, coming through the field from the rear, finished third in a Dodge. Lynch, who’d qualified fourth, had to start from the back after his team replaced a balky engine.

The race was interrupted for more than 11 minutes for track cleanup in the early going after Nick Joanides of Woodland Hills blew a tire, then crashed and burned in the second turn. Joanides was not hurt.