Roush Fenway Racing: Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle News
Matthew O USA Today
Roush Fenway Racing is off to a decent start in 2014. The team is anchored by Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. RFR also has Trevor Bayne, Ryan Reed and Chris Buescher on their team. Edwards has won a race this season and Stenhouse has already hit his career best finish by running second a few races ago. Biffle has been a bit slow out of the gate but has looked better the last few races.
One of the reasons for Biffle’s slow start could be that he is in the final year of his contract and hasn’t been offered a new deal yet. In many sports athletes are expected to rise to the occasion during contract years to “earn” that next or even last contract. At the age of 44, Biffle might be driving for his final long term deal with RFR. During a recent interview with Mike Neff of Frontstretch.com, Biffle addressed his contract being up at the end of the season.
"We’ve been working pretty diligently on that. It has been a pretty good negotiation so far. There are a lot of new people on both sides of the table so everyone is kind of getting a feel for the program and learning it. We feel pretty good that we’ll have something to announce before we get to summer."
That sounds promising if you’re a fan of the driver of the No. 16 car. However, anything can happen in NASCAR. RFR has a nice stable of young drivers on their team that they could easily decide to replace Biffle with if his season were to go from decent to terrible. Then again none of those younger drivers are proven like Biffle is, so the odds of that happening are probably slim.
Across the garage Biffle’s teammate Carl Edwards had himself quite the day this week. Tuesday night Edwards dawned a Kansas City Royals jersey (No. 99 on the back) when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Kauffman Stadium. Edwards was there as part of the promotion of the upcoming NASCAR race in Kansas this season.
Throwing out the first pitch at a MLB game is a pretty big deal. Although the pitch itself has no real importance, there is a lot of pride on the line. Bouncing the ball to the plate or putting it over the head of the catcher is something that no athlete wants to do, especially an athlete in the prime of their career like Edwards is. The driver of the No. 99 machine held his own though as he fired a pitch just off the plate; a pitch that popped the glove of Billy Butler who was behind the plate.
Off of the track stuff aside, Edwards and Biffle will both be looking to have solid runs this weekend in Darlington. For Biffle the pressure to win will be on since he hasn’t won yet unlike his teammate Edwards who already holds a victory. Both Edwards and Biffle will be driving special paint schemes this weekend, something that will make them want to put their cars in Victory Lane even more. Both drivers are hoping to build momentum off of decent performances on Monday in Texas.
Christopher Olmstead is the Editor of BeyondTheFlag.com on the FanSided Network. Follow us on Twitter @Beyond_The_Flag and “Like” us on Facebook.