LAS VEGAS, March 12 -- Greg Biffle is the kind of driver who believes he should win every time he gets into his racecar. When he fails, he doesn't hesitate to point fingers.
So imagine how Biffle felt when he failed to qualify in his first Nextel Cup visit to Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Greg Biffle, right, took a while to get a leg up on other drivers; he termed his rookie year "a disaster."
(Joe Cavaretta -- AP)
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"I was devastated," Biffle said Saturday of his 2003 failure. "I have won here before, and now I can't even qualify for the Cup race? But the truth is we just didn't bring a good car, we just didn't have the equipment and it was an awful realization."
Biffle is back at Las Vegas two years later as one of the favorites to win the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 on Sunday. He comes into the event on what he calls the hottest streak of his career -- winner of two of NASCAR's last three points races, dating from the 2004 season finale.
He'll start third on Sunday, behind Ryan Newman and Elliott Sadler, and even that is not good enough for the ultra-competitive 35-year-old from Vancouver, Wash.
"Actually, truth be known, I feel terrible," he said after his qualifying attempt. "I had a car to qualify on the pole here. Any driver is disappointed when he doesn't live up to what he thinks he can do and what the car can do."
Biffle has come a long way from his 2003 rookie season, which he now calls "a total disaster."
He had won a Truck Series championship and a Busch Series championship -- the only driver in NASCAR history to win both those titles -- for car owner Jack Roush before he was moved up to NASCAR's top level as a teammate to Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch.
But while his teammates were winning races, Biffle's start-up organization was struggling mightily.
When Roush formed the team, he put Randy Goss in charge -- a natural decision because Goss was crew chief for Biffle in both of his NASCAR championships. But the leap to the Nextel Cup series was too overwhelming for Goss, who didn't have the personnel he needed to get the team strongly off the ground.
By the time Biffle failed to qualify at Las Vegas -- just the third race of the season -- it was clear the relationship was not going to work.
"That was the start of the breakup of Randy and Greg. Within three to four more races, Greg was convinced that it was a bad partnership," said Roush Racing General Manager Geoff Smith. "Greg was just ahead of the team and the question was how fast could Jack catch the team up to Greg."
Biffle went on to win at Daytona in July of his rookie season with Goss still in place, but it was a temporary reprieve and Goss was gone six weeks later.
Roush then paired Biffle with Doug Richert, who had a similar responsibility of building a team 25 years earlier when he was paired with the late Dale Earnhardt. The duo won three races that season and the first of Earnhardt's seven championships.
It took some time to turn things around -- Smith said the team had to be "stripped down and built back up" -- but by the end of 2004 they were on track.
Biffle won two races. His victory in the finale helped clinch the championship for teammate Busch, and he finished 17th in the standings.
