Biffle wins his second straight Chase race

DOVER, Del. - Greg Biffle finished a middling regular season as a driver who just couldn't win.

Now, he's the one who simply can't lose.

Biffle traded a lengthy winless streak for a winning one when it mattered most. He made it a sparkling 2-for-2 in the Chase for the championship Sunday, using another late pass - this time with nine laps to go - to hold off Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards and bolster his bid for the Sprint Cup title.

"I feel like this has been coming for a while," Biffle said. "There's a lot of concentration right now. It doesn't get more important than this."

Up ahead for Biffle is a trip to Kansas City, a track where he won last season before starting a 33-race winless streak. That dismal skid seems as much behind him as his Roush Fenway Racing teammates Kenseth and Edwards were over the final, thrilling laps at Dover International Speedway.

While Biffle has been able to drive that No. 16 Ford into Victory Lane, he still can't maneuver into first place in the Chase points standings. Biffle and two-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson are tied for second, 10 points behind Edwards for the overall lead, but Johnson holds the tiebreaker.

Biffle knows the only way to catch Edwards is to keep winning races.

"We've got to beat the 99 car somehow," Biffle said. "We've got to start stretching it out."

That's exactly what he did with the lead once he caught Kenseth and put away Edwards. The trio engaged in a fantastic run over the final 20 laps that had to have tugged at owner Jack Roush's loyalties. Biffle, the winner last week at New Hampshire after passing Johnson with 12 laps left, made another textbook move to the outside past Kenseth to pull away.

"I thought I might be able to hang on, but I wasn't sure," Kenseth said.

Kenseth was second, and Edwards third in a wildly successful day for Roush Fenway. Kenseth had a disastrous Chase opener when an accident forced him out of the race and he entered 12th in the standings. He moved to 10th.

"The championship isn't really on my mind at this moment," Kenseth said.

Kyle Busch, the regular-season points winner, had another miserable race and a blown engine knocked him out early. He finished 43rd in the 400-mile race to drop to 12th and last in the Chase field.

"We're out of the title hunt, that's for sure," Busch said.

Mark Martin was fourth and Chase drivers filled up the next five spots. Johnson was fifth followed by Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton.