Biffle claims Busch gained advantage

Title contender Greg Biffle claims Kyle Busch has gained an unfair advantage on his Chase rivals by participating in a tyre test at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where the series will compete in five weeks' time.

Goodyear had Busch, Travis Kvapil and Scott Riggs testing tyres last Tuesday at Atlanta, following the overwhelming negative comments coming from drivers about the lack of grip they had when they raced in the spring at the mile-and-a-half oval.

Biffle believes that Busch should not have been called to test, because that gives him an edge over his fellow title rivals. Data acquisition systems are banned on race weekends, but they are allowed in private tests, something Biffle believes to have given Busch and his team an advantage.

"I think it's a pretty big significant deal," Biffle said about Busch's test. "I've got a really bad memory, and if my memory serves me correctly that they said that they wouldn't use Chase cars to do tyre testing once the Chase started.

"So, maybe my memory isn't serving me correctly because that's perfectly possible, but I thought that that was what I was told but I could be wrong on that. But, it does give you somewhat of an advantage, certainly.

"But no doubt that will help them because they had test data, I'm sure, on the car and were able to gather some information for going back."

Busch denied they could have gained any advantage by participating in the test, saying that they were not allowed to work on the setup of their car, as they were exclusively testing tyres.

"We really couldn't work on anything, so I don't see it as though it was an advantage," Busch said. "You are strictly there doing tyre tests for (Goodyear). You can't change your car setup as soon as you get it close."

The JGR driver claims that the new tyre he tested at Atlanta will be an improvement from the one used in the spring event, but still believes it won't offer as much grip as everyone expects because the car's aerodynamics simply don't allow for it.

"We got a better tyre now than what we had in the spring, but the tyre is only going to be better for eight or ten laps," he said. "The car just doesn't have the amount of downforce it needs to run around that track, and the more and more you go you just get so loose in and tight in the centre and loose off that you just can't stand it.

"It's going to be a tough race again - same as what it was there in the spring. Not a whole lot different."

Busch won the spring race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where Carl Edwards was his main rival for victory until his engine expired.