Biffle brings home bacon in OT

DARLINGTON, S.C. - Greg Biffle had the most-dominant car in the Dodge Charger 500, but he needed a lot of help from his Roush Racing teammate to win Saturday night's race at Darlington Raceway.

If not for a caution caused by Mark Martin with four laps to go, Ryan Newman would have easily won the race before a sellout crowd of 60,000 fans. But a two-lap overtime created by the late caution allowed Biffle to rally from fourth place to the win in just two laps, giving him his third victory of the season and continuing the winning trends created by Roush and Hendrick Motorsports.

Newman had a 100-yard lead and appeared to be in control at the end of the race when Martin spun coming off the second turn. He managed to keep his Ford from hitting the wall.

The caution, however, gave everyone the chance to make a final pit stop. As the leader, Newman was a sitting duck. If he stopped for new tires, most of the other lead-lap drivers would have stayed on the track to get track position. If he stayed out, they'd stop and have new tires for the re-start.

He stayed on the track, 17 of the other 18 lead-lap cars stopped.

When the race re-started, it didn't take long for Biffle to mount a charge. He easily got past another Roush teammate, Carl Edwards, and Ken Schrader (the only other driver to skip the final stop) in a half-lap after the restart. A quarter-lap later, he blasted past Newman.

"You would think with 20-some cars on the lead lap at least three would stay out (to provide a cushion), but they didn't," Newman said. "We had a car that should have won the race, but we didn't. We haven't been able to say that this year."

Biffle beat Jeff Gordon by five car lengths to give Roush his fifth win in 10 races this season. Hendrick drivers have combined to win four times.

Kasey Kahne finished third, while Martin rallied to finish fourth. Newman slipped to fifth, followed by Jamie McMurray in sixth, Jimmie Johnson in seventh, Dale Earnhardt Jr. in eighth, Edwards in ninth and Tony Stewart in 10th.

"We had a great car all night," Biffle said after leading a race-best 176 laps. "Track position was so tough."

It didn't take long for Darlington to reach out and grab its first victims. Defending series champion Kurt Busch crashed coming off the fourth turn on the first lap, then Michael Waltrip hit the wall going into the third turn six laps later.

Reach Don Coble at doncoble@bellsouth.net.