Sunday, August 3, 2008

Notebook: Biffle splashes way to 8th-place finish

MONTREAL (AP) -- While Greg Biffle had fun in the first major NASCAR points race in the rain, the Sprint Cup driver won't be quite as eager the next time it pours.

"I kind of was looking forward to this because I've never raced in the rain, but I don't think I will be from now on," Biffle said Saturday after the Nationwide Series race at rain-drenched Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.


"It got a little hairy there when it started raining so hard. The car would hydroplane bad down the frontstretch and I mean a 140 or 150 miles an hour hydroplane is not very safe. It made it hard to see there at the end. It was raining so hard and everything was getting so wet. The guys said there was an inch of water in the right side of the car on the floorboard. So the car started to fill with water and we were going to start having electrical problems."

Biffle, also racing Sunday in the Sprint Cup race at Pocono, finished eighth in the race -- the first major NASCAR points event ever run on grooved rain tires.

"It was fun. It was a lot of fun," he said. "I'm glad I made history today."

David Reutimann, also doing double-duty, finished 17th in the difficult conditions.

"It's probably not something we should do unless we come up with a better system to be able to see," Reutimann said. "The tires worked fine. All that stuff worked OK. I don't have a problem with that, just the lack of being able to see is the big issue and that's pretty dangerous. If we come up with a better scenario there's no reason why we couldn't do it in the future, but not with what we have now."

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LOGANO CRASHES: Teen star Joey Logano finished 17th in his first NASCAR road-course start after crashing during the final caution period.

"I hit a lapped car with no brake lights. I have no idea who it was," the 18-year-old driver said. "I couldn't see 5 feet in front of me down the straightaway, under caution. Somebody stopped. I locked up all four and boom! ... It's just not right."

In position to replace Tony Stewart next year in Joe Gibbs Racing's Sprint Cup lineup, Logano won at Kentucky Speedway in June in his third Nationwide Tour start and added second-place finishes at Milwaukee and Gateway.

"I'll take what I learned this weekend, try to forget about all the stupid stuff that happened and we'll get to do it again next week," Logano said.

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HOMEBREW: Quebec driver Andrew Ranger won the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race Saturday morning in dry conditions.

The 21-year-old Ranger, 29th in the Nationwide Series race, took advantage of leader J.R. Fitzpatrick's last-lap spin to win for the first time in eight races this season. Series leader Scott Steckly was second in the 23-lap race.

"I haven't won a race here in a long time and to do it in front of my family and fans is really nice," said Ranger, second last year.

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LUGNUTS: Nationwide Series leader Clint Bowyer finished ninth. He has a 168-point lead over fellow Sprint Cup driver Carl Edwards. ... Gilles Villeneuve, driver Jacques Villeneuve's father, was killed in a crash during qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix. The Montreal track was renamed Circuit Gilles Villeneuve soon after the accident.


Fellows wins in the rain in Montreal
Nationwide notebook: Be patient with Montreal
PSG chase France legends