Biffle’s crew chief is well known

By Mike Mulhern
Media General News Service
Published: September 23, 2008

DOVER, Del. - Greg Biffle, a NASCAR Cup winner since 2003, is a well known part of the stock car racing world.

But teammate crew chief Greg Erwin is just becoming known, though Erwin has been a highly- respected sports insider for years.

Erwin earned his spurs for Richard Childress, working with Robby Gordon, and when Gordon went on his own Erwin went with him.

But Gordon is his own man. “I tried to point Robby in the right directions, but ...“ Erwin said of his frustrations. “He will probably win races, here and there, because he’s so talented. But as far as running competitively every week and running for championships too.“

So when car owner Jack Roush offered Erwin a job 15 months ago Erwin went for it. “I had to see if I could do it,“ Erwin said.

Last year was something of a disappointment.

This year, though winless until Loudon, Biffle and Erwin have had one of the top half-dozen teams on tour, and they could easily have won several other races.

“I’ll take the biggest part of that blame for the struggle with the old-style race car last year,“ Erwin said. “I didn’t hit the ground running in my new position there at Roush.

“There was a lot of work to be done. There were a lot of things I didn’t know about the cars we had.

“Obviously I didn’t really have any kind of relationship with Greg. So in learning him as a driver, we had personnel issues. And we had some pit-crew issues.

“Quite honestly I felt we made some strong improvements towards the end of the season. The win at Kansas in the old-style car was pretty nice .... and we did have a fast race car, shortened race or not.

“But I think we saw when this car-of-tomorrow thing coming through we started running the car last year, and we had very good finishes. That’s a testament to the guys at the shop - the engineering department, the fab shop, the gear and transmission department.

“As a group, we’ve got some of the best equipment out there.

“I think it shows.“

And Biffle is one of the hardest chargers this sport has seen in years. He is fast.

Biffle was clearly trying to throw the intimidation factor at his rivals these last two weeks by making so many daring moves.

Erwin says that it will take a Jimmie Johnson style approach to this championship stretch, with fearless racing. Steady driving, he says, won’t get it.

Of course that’s a high-risk approach. Perhaps that’s why Johnson backed off a little at the end when Biffle, Kenseth and Edwards were rooting and gouging so much.

Erwin says his game plan was simple - don’t screw up.

“The strategy was to take what we thought was probably the best race car on Saturday, with the guy that’s had a lot of success here, and not screw it up,“ Erwin said.

But Biffle had to stop early to get some chassis tweaks, and that cost him track position.

“We were able to make most of that track position up by the second pit stop,“ Erwin said.

“It’s a fine line you walk between over-adjusting and getting it to where he can run hammer-down and do what he did the last 50 laps.

“It was spectacular. I hope the fans enjoyed it. It doesn’t get any better than that.“

This 400 was much different than the June race here, when drivers complained about problems passing.

“The racing was so much better,“ Biffle says, “because the guys figured out how to use the race track better.

“We were able to use the top and the bottom.

“We got our cars loose enough where if you drive up behind the guy, it gets that guy loose, and he has to move up the track (opening the door for an inside pass).“

Mike Mulhern can be reached at .