2012 Review:
Greg Biffle's 2012 season can be best described as simply "solid". Highlights include wins at Texas in the spring and Michigan in the summer. Biffle also enjoyed the best average finish over the course of a season in his career and tied his career mark for top ten finishes at 21.
Most impressively, the No.16 team led the points for a total of 14 race weekends, including an 11 race stretch from early March to early June. Biffle also retook the points lead for the three races leading up to the end of NASCAR's regular season.
However, the team fell to fifth once points were reset at the beginning of the Chase, and after beginning the post-season with three straight finishes outside the top ten, Biffle found himself ranked 11th and out of championship contention.
The No.16 rebounded, though, finishing 2012 off with six top tens in the final seven races, resulting in a fifth place points finish. This marked the third time in his career that Biffle ended a Sprint Cup season ranked within the overall top five.
2013 Preview:
Matt Puccia returns to the pit box, keeping together a pairing of driver and crew chief that has been together since mid-2011.
It's obvious Biffle and Puccia are a combination that works; the No.16 team's fifth place finish to the season was a vast improvement over a 16th place ranking in 2011. Puccia replaced Greg Irwin as crew chief after the Kentucky race that year.
Biffle is difficult to gauge. He can dominate races, such as in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte where he led 204 out of 400 laps — he went on to finish 3rd. He's also prone to disappearing acts, such as a six race stretch between the fall Bristol and Dover races where he recorded finishes in the teens five times.
Over the course of ten full seasons in the Sprint Cup Series, Biffle has five finishes within the top ten in points. He also has five finishes outside the top ten.
Furthermore, he lost a valuable teammate, and by extent a great source of sharable data in Matt Kenseth. Kenseth, known for being the epitome of consistency, left in the offseason for Joe Gibbs Racing, and has been replaced by rookie driver Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
2013 Pediction:
There is no doubt that Greg Biffle is a wheelman, and as far as I'm concerned, one of the more underrated talents in the garage. But he's also plagued by inconsistency, which keeps him from climbing over the hump.
Also, with Edwards in recovery mode and Stenhouse needing some time to become acclimated to both the cars and competition of NASCAR's top series, Biffle's team might have to fend for themselves, so to speak, more often than usual early on.
Overall, I expect an up and down year, with the No.16 team running up front at tracks where they normally excel —larger and higher banked ovals — while struggling at other points of the season. That's why it's hard, despite his talent and the flashes of brilliance his team showed over the course of last year, to put him any higher than 11th.
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