HAMPTON, Ga. -- All weekend, Greg Biffle moaned about the lack of speed in his Winston Cup car. Turns out he might have been prematurely pessimistic.

In his Ford, Biffle moved from his 27th starting spot into the top 15 in the early laps of the Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday.

He was 16th when rain stopped the race on lap 39 after the entire field completed pit stops.

A day earlier, he drove a Chevrolet to victory in the Busch Series event and complained that he had little hope of doing the same in the Cup race.

"It's manageable right now," Biffle said after the rain. "I think if we can maybe get a better balance we might be able to run up there in the top 10. I'm optimistic to see what we can do with that."

When asked if the rain before the race hurt his car's performance, Biffle laughed.

"Not really, because we haven't had a setup in the last couple of days," he said. "It was out the window before the race started. We're excited about being able to work on it here."

Benson job hunting
Johnny Benson found out earlier in the week that he was out of a job next season when MBV Motorsports signed Scott Riggs, even though Benson has another year left on his contract.

"They pretty much just said they had somebody signed to come into the car and at that point in time, they had to work on me getting out of the car," Benson said. "That's cool. That's how the business works."

After getting his first career victory last season -- and the first for the team -- Benson started fast in 2003. He was sixth in points after four races with three top-15 finishes, but he didn't keep the momentum.

In 32 starts, he has only one top five and three top 10s, and he's 27th in the standings.

Now, with only three more races left, Benson needs to find a ride.

"I've talked to a couple of people, but there's either people already in the car or circumstances that have not allowed them to move forward on different things," Benson said. "This is awful late for them, too. It's not the best time of year to be doing this."

Penalty for Mears
Rookie Casey Mears made a great jump on the start, moving to the outside and picking up about five positions.

Well, his start was a little too good. NASCAR penalized him for passing before the green fell.

"They all checked up a little bit more than I thought they were going to, and I popped to the outside so I didn't hit them," Mears said. "And I thought, 'Man, if I stay out of the gas and wait for them to clear me again, the guy behind me is going to be by.'

"So I stayed in the gas."

Mears was lucky he stayed on the lead lap. Just when he decided to pit for his penalty, a caution came out for debris from Dale Jarrett's blown tire. That kept Mears in the hunt.

"It worked out great," he said.

Killing time
The rain left the drivers and teams with plenty of time to burn in the garage, and most of them spent it with their friends.

"It's like a timeout," said Eddie Wood, co-owner of Ricky Rudd's Ford. "Most of the time when it rains like this, you get caught up and talk with some of your buddies you haven't seen.

"We're together every week, but still, there is no time to do anything, so you go talk to some people that you haven't talked to in a week or so."

With the postponement until Monday, preparations for the teams' travel to Phoenix for next week's event have been pushed back, meaning a long week for the crews.

"Everybody has to dig in a little harder, but it'll still work," Wood said.

Pit road mishap
With 42 cars still on the lead lap when the caution came out for rain, pit road was a busy place. Kurt Busch and rookie Tony Raines slammed their cars together, and Busch's Ford suffered fender damage.

"The pits are so messed up here," Raines said. "I was trying to turn into my pit and I saw (Busch) coming out. I aborted, but he kept coming. He went to the right and he came out and hit me in the left rear tire and cut it down."

Busch, who has only one top-10 finish since his victory at Bristol in August, wasn't happy about the mishap.

"Wrong place at the wrong time," he said. "That's the way our season has gone."

When pressed for more details about the incident, Busch again said, "Wrong place at the wrong time."