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Busch Grand National Division




Sunday, April 15
Updated: April 17, 8:42 PM ET
Victory gives Biffle a confidence boost
Associated Press

GLADEVILLE, Tenn. – Greg Biffle was confident at the start of his first season on the NASCAR Busch Series, because he was driving for Roush Racing.

Now, after winning his first race, he is setting his sights higher.

Biffle
Greg Biffle has successfully made the transition from the Craftsman Truck Series to the Busch Series.
"Maybe now the focus is shifting towards possibly a points championship," Biffle said Saturday after winning the Pepsi 300 and moving to third in the points race.

Bold talk for a rookie, but Biffle isn't an ordinary newcomer. He is driving Mark Martin's old car, inherited after Martin won five Busch races in 2000 before deciding to cut the series from his schedule.

Kevin Harvick, last season's rookie of the year, still leads the points race. But Biffle is just 92 points back, and he can tap Martin or Jeff Burton for advice and has good equipment thanks to Roush. He provided his own experience as the champion of the Craftsman Truck Series last season.

Biffle put all that together Saturday in the first big race at the new Nashville Superspeedway as he led five different times for 133 laps, including the last 38 for his first victory in only his eighth Busch race.

Only Johnny Rumley, who won in his seventh race in 1993, has won quicker in this series.

"I'm so happy to be in Victory Lane for the first time in the Busch Series and hopefully it's not our last for the season," Biffle said.

Biffle took the lead for good on lap 187 when he nosed his car underneath Jason Keller going into Turn 4 and loosened up Keller's Ford enough to move by him. Not even a restart off the 11th caution of the day could knock Biffle off pace as he won by .602 seconds.

"He stuck his nose right up where he needed to. He didn't do anything wrong. He got me a little loose," said Keller, who came into Nashville second in the points race behind Harvick. "We ran tit for tat with him, but we didn't have anything to go up there and blast by him."

Keller finished second for his third top-five finish this season. Rookie Scott Wimmer was third, followed by Randy LaJoie and Elton Sawyer. Harvick, who had the pole, was seventh as 10 drivers swapped the lead 15 times.

Most of the cautions came due to wrecks in Turns 1 and 2, where drivers complained of a slick spot that kept them from getting traction on the concrete surface of the 1.33-mile D-shaped tri-oval track. Shawna Robinson, who was racing in her second Busch race in preparation for a Winston Cup debut on April 29, didn't even finish a lap as she was sandwiched in that area on the first lap.

But Keller praised the $125 million facility, which took over the race held last season at the Nashville Speedway on a 5/8-mile track.

"It's the best new race track I've been to in a long time," he said. "It is a racetrack of the future. ... When you see the crowds we had here and where the future of the sport is going and where the Busch Series is going, you have to have facilities like this."

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Fresh from his Pepsi 300 victory, Greg Biffle joins John Kernan in the RPM 2Night studio.


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