Biffle adds win to his strong start

“It will take years off your life. I’ve probably lost several,” Biffle said. “What kept me going or what keeps your spirit up is when you run good. … We have run good, we just hadn’t finished.”

Until getting to Texas, where Jack Roush’s drivers have always been good.

Biffle held on tight in the fastest Sprint Cup race ever on the 1 1/2-mile, high-banked track, pulling away after charging below Jimmie Johnson for a winning pass with 30 laps remaining on Saturday night.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup season points leader after five consecutive races now has a victory to go with that lofty status.

“To win like this and put a bunch of ground on the guys behind us certainly makes a statement, I think, for all the people that were wondering if this was kind of a fluke that we were still leading the points this far in,” Biffle said.

For Roush, it was his ninth victory in 23 Cup races at Texas, and completed a weekend sweep.

The team owner won his ninth Nationwide race in Texas, and fourth in a row, when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. went to Victory Lane on Friday night.

Biffle’s 17th career victory was his first since an October 2010 race in Kansas, where the series goes next week.

A decade after winning the Nationwide Series season championship, which came after a NASCAR trucks championship, maybe this could be the year the 42-year-old Biffle becomes the first driver with a NASCAR series trifecta of titles.

“When I moved from the Truck Series to Nationwide, it was a huge step. It was much, much harder. And when I moved from the Nationwide to the Cup Series, I had no idea that the competition was going to be what it was,” he said. “I knew it was going to be hard. ... But this year is my year, so I’m going to keep after it all the way to Homestead.”