#16- Greg Biffle met with members of the media at Media Day at Daytona International Speedway on Tuesday, a few of the Q&A;’s:
Q) HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE NEW CHARTER SYSTEM?
Biffle: ‘I think it is good. I don’t know a tremendous amount about it but I know bits and pieces and I think it gives owners and investors something to build upon over time. It gives them some value I think. I get all of those things because after all, if somebody wants something at the end of the day for their time and effort they put in that a charter system heads in that direction.’
Q) DID IT REQUIRE RENEGOTIATION OF YOUR CONTRACT?
Biffle: We are still working on that. I haven’t had a chance to sit down with our people yet. Our contracts were based around the old system so obviously the new system won’t work around the old system so we have to figure out how that translates.’
Q) WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THE IMPACT THE CHARTER SYSTEM HAS HAD ON DRIVERS AS A WHOLE?
Biffle: ‘I think two things. This is just purely my opinion. I know they worked very hard on the charter system and spent a great deal of time on it and I believe it is a great thing for NASCAR and the teams and owners and investors across the board. The bad thing, and not by design, was that it got done – they worked all through Christmas and everything – but it got done two weeks before or a week before the season started and our contracts are built around the old system so now it is almost like that gets kicked out of the system and has to be redone or renegotiated or whatever. You have Daytona a week away and I will have to say also that I wasn’t up on what all the changes were going to be and how it affected us. That is probably my fault. Until it was done did we know that it happened. I don’t know if other drivers were privy on how it would go down. I knew it would change, and it isn’t a bad thing, but the timing is more of an issue than anything.’
Q) HAVE YOU HAD YOUR DEAL REDONE?
Biffle: ‘Not yet. Steve (Newmark) has bugged me a couple times that we need to sit down and go over it so that we can get it and we had media things and KFC commercials to shoot and I have been very busy doing stuff so we haven’t had a chance to sit down yet. I think it is just a matter of economics or math. We are all going to want to keep our same deal, it will just be derived differently. It will be the same as it was just instead of coming from one column it will come from four but ultimately will be the same.’ Q) STEVE NEWMARK HAS TOLD YOU THAT YOU WILL GET PAID THE SAME AS LAST YEAR BUT JUST A DIFFERENT STRUCTURE BECAUSE THE PURSE IS DIFFERENT?
Biffle: ‘That is what I anticipate. He hasn’t used those exact words but I don’t think anybody is taking it as an opportunity to change driver contracts.’
Q) HAVE YOU SEEN THE CHARTER SYSTEM, THE DEAL AND HOW IT DIVIDES UP THE MONEY DIFFERENTLY THAN BEFORE?
Biffle: ‘No.’
Q) SO THEY AREN’T GOING TO PUT PURSE WINNINGS IN BOX SCORES AFTER RACES ANYMORE. DID YOU EVER LOOK AT THAT?
Biffle: ‘Not really because it was really a phantom number because it had planned money or TV money or contingency money. You could look at it as a sea level type thing of what that race paid to win because there is some variance if you are going to Texas or Darlington or Michigan, there is a little variance, but I didn’t look at it to try to figure out what I was going to get out of a certain thing.’(Ford Performance)
