Greg Biffle Wins for Jack Roush at Pocono

After missing the right pit strategy at Indianapolis with a four-tire pit stop at the end of the Brickyard 400 last weekend, Roush Fenway driver Greg Biffle and his team knew well enough to take two tires late in the Sprint Cup race at Pocono. And the strategy propelled him to a comfortable victory over Tony Stewart on Sunday.

"This one's for Jack, guys," Biffle said as he cruised through turn three on the last lap.

Carl Edwards finished third, followed by points leader Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin.

"We had a couple of really key two-tire stops that got us up front," said Biffle's crew chief, Greg Erwin.

It was a stirring victory for a struggling Roush Fenway organization, made even more poignant by the fact that owner Jack Roush was seriously injured when he crash-landed his jet last Tuesday in Wisconsin. Roush was not at the track, but followed the race from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where he is recovering from significant facial injuries he suffered in the crash.

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"This one is for Jack. We know he's watching. We're thinking about him," Biffle said in victory lane. "This answered all the questions about the Ford. There it is."

It was Ford's first victory since Talladega last fall.

"The whole company needed it," Erwin said. "Hopefully this helps Jack in his healing process."

Biffle was able to put himself near the front of the field after a horrendous crash with about 40 laps to go brought out a red flag.

No one was hurt in the crash, which involved several cars, but Elliott Sadler's car hit an inside guardrail directly head-on in an impact that was so violent, it ripped the engine from the car.

After a 29-minute red flag to clean up the mess and weld the antiquated steel guardrail, NASCAR brought the yellow flag back out with 35 laps to go. About two laps later, the pits opened, and every driver anywhere close to the front came to the pits.

Biffle took two tires, gained three positions and emerged in second position, trailing only Sam Hornish Jr., who stayed out, hoping for rain and a surprise victory. Although the early part of the race was dominated by Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, they took four tires on the finial stop, as did most of the other leaders, and fell back.

And like at Indianapolis, the four-tire stop cars could never really charge to the front as expected.

Biffle muscled past Hornish going into the tunnel turn after a restart with 21 laps to go and he extended his lead from there.

In the crash, Sadler, who won the NASCAR truck race at Pocono, had the hardest hit of the year. It started when Johnson turned Kurt Busch between turns one and two, sending Busch's car into the outside wall and then the inside wall in a couple of hard hits.

Sadler was apparently hit from behind when he slowed. Sadler went head-on into an Armco steel guardrail fronting an earthen berm that juts out at an angle from the regular stretch of inside fence. So instead of hitting the guardrail at an angle, Sadler hit head-on.

The violent impact ripped the engine and one wheel from his car, and left Sadler wincing in pain as he crawled out of his car.



"I'm okay. I'm a little sore. It knocked the breath out of me pretty good," Sadler told ESPN after coming out of the infield care center. "But it was definitely the hardest hit I've ever had in a race car. I saw some smoke, Everybody started checking up. I checked up. Whoever was running behind us did not and ran in the back of us and knocked us down through the grass."

The crash forced NASCAR to throw a red flag as a few rain drops fell as welders worked to repair the antiquated steel guardrail hit by both Busch and Sadler.

After the red flag was pulled 29 minutes later, Hornish made a bid for a rain-delay victory when he elected not to pit as the rest of the field did with about 30 laps to go. Hornish appeared to get lucky when a passing shower dampened the track and brought out another red flag. But the rain was not enough to lose the track, and the race was able to resume with 21 laps to go.

Hornish is having another difficult season -- his third in Sprint Cup with Penske Racing -- and has not scored even a top-10 finish. When the green came back out, Biffle jumped into the lead in the tunnel turn, but Hornish hung on gamely, and he did not give up second to Tony Stewart until only nine laps to go. But he started dropping then, and finished 11th.