Greg Biffle's comments about push-drafting during the January NASCAR Media Tour further cement his growing reputation as someone who runs his mouth. "Jimmie Johnson better be careful, or somebody will break his neck," Biffle said in a continuing feud he has had with Jimmie Johnson. Biffle blasted Johnson for accidents at Daytona and Talladega in 2005, then played dumb by saying, "You can't point fingers. Jimmie is a great driver, and certainly didn't mean to cause them. Nobody means to cause a wreck." Biffle further played dumb when he said, "I'm not one to point fingers" about an encounter with Johnson at the Daytona 500.
Biffle sells the audience short here. First, he is one to point fingers and has done so throughout his career. Second, drivers DO in fact mean to cause wrecks. There is almost no such thing as causing a wreck by accident anymore, if there ever was such a thing. Wrecks happen because drivers have control of their cars and WANT to cause wrecks. Saying "it's so hard to see out of these cars with the headrests" as Biffle does won't cut it, because drivers have more control over their cars than many people think. As Bobby Allison once put it about Darrell Waltrip, "as he was going in there he was thinking, 'it sure wouldn't hurt to send him on a ride.'"
Biffle's osteinsible concern is push- (or bump) drafting. "Bump-drafting has gotten out of hand, and NASCAR needs to do something about it." Biffle is wrong. Push-drafting, a technique as old as superspeedways, is a very legitimate racing tactic and is often the only way to pass. The wrecks blamed on push-drafting are the fault of drivers, not the fault of rules or lack of rules. By blaming a tactic instead of the driver(s) involved, Biffle passes the buck and thus is dodging responsibility.
Biffle needs to talk less and race more.
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