NASCAR: Roush improved, but long way to go - Biffle

Greg Biffle has raced through the on-track collapse of Roush Fenway Racing, and now he's hoping to experience its resurgence.

The 46-year-old has spent his entire 15-year Cup tenure with the Ford mainstay. During that time, he's won 19 times, but none over the past four seasons during which Roush has been relegated to the back half of the field. But now the entire organization is starting to show signs of life, and Biffle hopes its an indicator of future performance.

"Compared to last year it is a huge improvement," Biffle said. "It's a reason to celebrate and go on vacation. But where we are at compared to our competition is not so much a reason to celebrate yet because we are running between 10th and 15th and we want to be better than that."

But there has been noticeable improvement.

Ricky Stenhouse is leading the way for the team this season in 18th in the championship standings, while Bayne and Biffle are 19th and 23rd, respectively. Bayne's improvement is 10 spots ahead of where he finished last season, while Biffle's results have been tarnished by a handful of DNFs.

Although Roush has started to compete for top-15s, Biffle didn't pull any punches when he was asked to assess where they needed to be this season.

"We have to get to where we can run in the top 10," Biffle said. "That is a huge task. It feels like we have a long way to go to get there. It is a lot of small stuff, a lot of little things. We are focused on trying to figure that out. But if you compare it from last year to this year, we are like singing and dancing.

"It's a night-and-day difference. Now we are faced with as big of a challenge getting from where we are at now to into that top 10."

ROUSH UNDECIDED ON BIFFLE PENALTY APPEAL

NASCAR hit the team with a P3 penalty for failing to meet approved body designs. Crew chief Brian Pattie was suspended through June 15 and placed on probation through the end of the season. Robbie Reiser will act as the interim crew chief with engineers Randy Seals and Bill Curwood taking on increased responsibilities.

Biffle was also docked 15 championship points.

"I don't think we have decided as an organization whether we are going to appeal or not at this point" Biffle said. "It's really still up in the air."