It's not like things have been going the way he wanted to start with this season. Greg Biffle heads to Pocono Raceway 23rd in the Sprint cup standings and seeking his first top-10 finish of the season.
And he does so without his crew chief. Brian Pattie was suspended two races after Biffle's car failed post-race inspection following Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. On Wednesday, NASCAR announced that Pattie will miss races this week at Pocono Raceway and the following week at Michigan International Speedway. He has been fined $50,000 and the team lost 15 driver and owner points in the standings, pushing Biffle to his current overall position.
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Roush Fenway Racing general manager Robbie Reiser, a former crew chief, will replace Pattie.
It's yet another blow for the driver who finished second in the series standings in 2005, but has a top finish of 11th this season. On Sunday, Biffle will start from 15th.
Meeting with reporters on Friday, Biffle was asked what it meant to him and his team not having Pattie on the pit box for Sunday's Axalta "We Paint Winners" 400.
"It is tough on us," he said. "We have been running decent and not getting the finishes that we have been trying to get. I guess you would say we deserve where we have been running. That has been really tough on us as a team. At Charlotte we go and qualify decent, run decent, stay out of trouble and run a clean race and finish 11th. That is not where we wanted. We wanted to get a top-10 so that is kind of a little bit of a shot that we don't get to have Brian for the next couple weeks."
He added that he couldn't comment on whether "I think it is fair or not or if we were off in a couple areas more than we should have been."
He did, though, question why the team wasn't allowed to correct its problem.
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"I do know it is the first time they have had our car in quite some time so it seems a little harsh to me to not give us a chance to fix it," he said. "I get that it has to be fair for everyone. It doesn't matter that we finished 11th and never led a lap. It isn't like we dominated the whole race, but that doesn't matter. It is disappointing but we will get through it. It is only a couple of races so we move on."
As to the temporary change, Biffle said that he is comfortable with Reiser, who won the 2003 championship with Matt Kenseth. Biffle knows how to manage Pocono — he won at the track in 2010.
#FlashbackFriday: @gbiffle takes the checkers @poconoraceway in 2010. Can The Biff tame the Tricky Triangle again? pic.twitter.com/q5sn9hwdt6
— Roush Fenway Racing (@roushfenway) June 3, 2016
Now, he'll try to match that result with Reiser.
"The crew chief these days in the sport is more of a manager and decision maker and the car chief and engineers make it a correlated deal," Biffle said. "It is an impact but it isn't like we can't function without having Brian. The importance of losing a crew chief is really in calling the race. Having Robbie Reiser on the box to call the race certainly makes good sense. He has done a good job on the box and has won a title. That is not a disadvantage to us."
Qualifying at Pocono was scheduled for Friday evening. Sunday's race begins after 1 p.m. ET, although weather at the Pennsylvania track might be a problems.