Biffle could be the biggest surprise in the Chase

Greg Biffle became the Chase darkhorse after winning in Loudon last week. AP

Greg Biffle was fed up. This was at Atlanta Motor Speedway last October. The week before, two of his teammates at Roush Fenway Racing -- Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth -- had been involved in an ugly post-race incident at Martinsville that was captured on video and posted on YouTube. In the grainy video a menacing-looking Edwards feigns a punch at Kenseth, who is sitting on the pit wall doing an interview. Kenseth flinches, then Edwards, who was upset with Kenseth because of earlier on-track incident, storms away into the Virginia evening, leaving Kenseth momentarily shaken.

This could have been the end of the relationship between Kenseth and Edwards -- it's still tenuous, make no mistake -- but Biffle intervened. The next week at Atlanta, Biffle played the role of peacemaker, specifically telling Edwards that he was in the wrong and needed to convey that to Kenseth. Eventually, largely thanks to Biffle's diligence, the issue of their confrontation quietly simmered down, and the two now have a working relationship. "It's hard enough to win when your teammates aren't fighting," Biffle told me back then in Atlanta as he walked through the garage. "This stuff is ridiculous and won't help any of us win a championship. Some one has got to step and say something to these guys, and I guess I'm the one to do that."

In retrospect, on that day Biffle, 38, became the de facto leader in the driving stable at Roush Fenway. Though Kenseth has been with the team longer, he possesses a quiet, laid-back personality, one that doesn't lend itself to leadership like the way Jeff Burton's outgoing personality has made him the head of Richard Childress Racing. Edwards has won more races than Biffle -- and he's clearly the favorite of owner Jack Roush, who views Edwards like a son -- but Edwards doesn't have the universal respect in the garage that Biffle does. After all, among drivers and crews Biffle is one the most well-liked figures in the sport, and this will surely help him over the next nine weeks as he guns for his first Cup title, because you can never have enough friends on the track.

After winning his first race of the season last week in New Hampshire, which snapped a 33-race winless streak, Biffle jumped from sixth to third in the standings. Given that the next two tracks on the schedule are among his best -- Dover (Del.) on Sunday and Kansas Speedway next Sunday -- it seems a safe bet that Biffle will be the biggest surprise in the Chase over the first month of racing. Biffle finished third at Dover earlier this season and he won at Kansas last September. If he can pull out two top-five runs over these next two weeks, the points lead could be his when the circuit heads to Talladega on Oct. 5th.

"I feel like we're definitely the darkhorse," says Biffle.

"Overlooked, dark horse, not the favorite, it really makes no difference to me," says Biffle's crew chief Greg Erwin. "I look at it, it's common sense. You've got a guy out there [in Kyle Busch] who's won eight races, you've got a guy [Edwards] who's won six and you've got a guy [Jimmie Johnson] who's won two [in a row and] three of the last [seven]. Of course, they're going to be the favorites. That's just human nature. It's like that in any sport."

Biffle is trying to follow the same script that Busch, a former Roush driver, did in 2004. Back then Busch entered the Chase in seventh place in the points. His regular season, like Biffle's this year, had been up-and-down, as he'd finish 36th one week and fourth the next. But then Busch caught fire once the Chase started. Like Biffle last week, Busch won the Chase opener in New Hampshire and then finished no worse than sixth in seven of the final nine races to win the championship.

Can Biffle do it? Well, he's no longer a darkhorse, but he's hardly a favorite, either. He's still got to show that he can race wheel-to-wheel with Edwards and Johnson on a weekly basis. But the leader of Roush Fenway Racing is off to a perfect start. And like Kurt Busch proved back in '04, if you peak at the perfect time, anyone can win the Chase -- even someone who's been as quiet as Biffle has this season.