Is anybody noticing that Greg Biffle has a pretty good chance of winning this season's NASCAR Sprint Cup championship?
It doesn't matter to a defiant Biffle, who figures he will contend for the title until November, when the season wraps up in Homestead, Florida
"A lot of people don't expect us to win the championship or compete for the title," Biffle said Sunday after winning the Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway. "I don't care. But we will be a factor when we get to Homestead."
Biffle's victory vaulted him back into first place in the standings - 20 points ahead of Matt Kenseth - as the start of Chase for the Cup looms, just three races away. It's not like Biffle isn't used to being the leader this season: He had the lead for 11 consecutive weeks before surrendering it to Kenseth at Pocono in June.
Biffle's triumph Sunday and subsequent move into the first place in points came at the expense of Jimmie Johnson, last week's point leader, who was leading the race when his engine blew with six laps remaining.
To that point, Johnson appeared to have the strongest car in the field. But when his engine let go on Lap 195, the tone of what was left of the 200-lap race took a quick turn.
Biffle grabbed the lead for a third and final time. But he had Brad Keselowski to deal with on the front row of the restart. Biffle beat Keselowski into Turn 1 and held him off for his second victory of the season (he won at Texas in April). Keselowski staved off a rapidly closing Kasey Kahne for second. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who led 25 laps, was fourth and Marcos Ambrose followed up his victory last week at Watkins Glen with a fifth-place finish.
The scariest moment of the day came on Lap 65, when pole-winner Mark Martin, who was leading at the time, slammed into the end of the inside pit road wall. Martin had gone spinning onto pit road out of Turn 4 when Juan Pablo Montoya and Bobby Labonte spun in front of him.
Martin lost control of his Toyota and it veered down pit road for several hundred feet, banging sideways into the end of the wall where there is an entrance to the garage. Martin's car T-boned the wall just behind the No. 55 that adorns his driver's side door, ending his day.
"That was a pretty freak angle that I got at that," said Martin. "It could have been really bad if I would have gotten in that hole a little deeper where it caught me in the door instead of the crush area back there. I was hoping I was going to miss the pit wall completely and not tear the car up."
Johnson finished 27th, dropping to fourth place in the standings. He still hasn't won at Michigan in his 12-year Cup career. It's one of five tracks at which he is winless, which include Homestead, Watkins Glen, Kentucky and Chicago.
Johnson had made his way through nearly the entire field from the start of the race. He had to start near the rear after he changed engines after Saturday's practice, although he qualified third.
After his engine blew, Johnson shouted, "You've got to be kidding me!" in his radio. He walked from the garage toward his motor home in the infield with his helmet still on, declining to talk with reporters.
