Greg Biffle is frustrated with Roush Fenway Racing's progress
FONTANA, Calif. – The numbers speak loudly, and, for Roush Fenway Racing, the shouting isn't good four races into the Sprint Cup season.
Veteran driver Greg Biffle has the highest RFR spot in the point standings, and that's a not-so-impressive 16th. Trevor Bayne is 26th and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 27th.
Ford's other powerhouse team in the series, Team Penske, is faring much better. Joey Logano is second in points, and Brad Keselowski is ninth. Logano has a win and four top 10s, while Keselowski has top-10 runs in three of the first four races.
RFR has only one top-10 run, a 10th by Biffle in the Daytona 500.
The Roush team's continuing struggles led Biffle to offer a rather ominous comment after Friday qualifying. He said the team was "dying a slow death."
Biffle expanded on that remark Sunday morning prior to the Auto Club 400.
"It's difficult as a competitor to show up at a place you've won twice at and come off the truck 32nd in speed," he said. "This is difficult. I didn't mean we were dying a slow death. You want to unload off the truck and be 10th, or you want to unload off the truck and be in the top 10 or top 15.
"You take Las Vegas, for instance. I like to use Las Vegas because last year we finished three laps down there and didn't have any speed and the car was undriveable (Biffle finished 22nd, a lap down). We go back to Las Vegas (this year), and we were fairly competitive, ran up in the top 10 for part of the race and ended up with a decent finish (14th), and we were really excited about that.
"We come here with guns blazing, ready to go, unload off the truck, and we just missed it. I was really frustrated about that because I was running fourth here last year and I knew with that car we're not running fourth right now."
Penske has been on the upswing in recent years, while RFR has found the going difficult. What is Penske doing that Roush isn't?
"I'll pay you a lot of money if you tell me and if you can go find that out for me," Biffle said. "A lot of people point to Penske as it being a manufacturer deal, and it truly isn't manufacturer related, in my opinion, because we look at when Hendrick wasn't as dominant, look at when Childress wasn't as dominant as they are today – look at Haas when they weren't as dominant as they are today. So it's not necessarily Ford, Ford or Chevy, Chevy because when one of those Chevy teams weren't dominant another one kind of was lurking around like Penske is, so I wouldn't say it's manufacturer related.
"They've figured out whatever they've figured out that we're trying to figure out. They've figured it out like the other guys have. And we feel like we're gaining on it. Certainly, Las Vegas was a high point for us."
RFR made significant personnel changes in the offseason in an attempt to redirect the ship, but Stenhouse warned in the preseason that fans shouldn't expect an immediate turnaround. Biffle said the search for progress continues.
"We just keep looking for what creates speed in the car and just keep working in that direction," he said.
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