Biffle still considers himself the underdog

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Greg Biffle leads the Sprint Cup standings. He’s coming off a late pass of Jimmie Johnson to win at Texas and is now headed to Kansas Speedway, where he’s won twice.

Everything seems to indicate that Biffle is on top of his game.

He’s not so sure he’s even tops on his team.

The often-overlooked driver at Roush-Fenway Racing still believes that title belongs to Carl Edwards, who became the poster boy for the organization during a dream 2008 season.

But it’s the former Trucks and Nationwide champion who has dominated this year, with top-three finishes the first three races and a sixth-place run at California a few weeks ago.

“I still think the 99 is the No. 1 team at Roush. I’m the underdog,” Biffle said, his face not for a moment giving the impression that he’s kidding.

Edwards, who is 11th in points, had a different opinion.

“Right now, Greg is the No. 1 team – the 16 team is,” Edwards said, “because they’re leading the points and winning races.”

Biffle, who qualified 17th for today’s race, has finished no worse than 13th this season.

He has a 19-point lead in the standings over teammate Matt Kenseth and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Allmendinger wins pole

AJ Allmendinger rolled off the track and hopped out of his car, convinced that he’d put together a decent qualifying run but expecting to start somewhere in the top 15 today. Turns out he’ll be starting up front.

Allmendinger captured his second career Sprint Cup pole, turning a lap of 175.993 mph in his Penske Racing Dodge to knock Kevin Harvick off the top spot at Kansas Speedway. Joey Logano had the third-fastest time but will start at the rear after changing engines during practice.

It was the first pole for Allmendinger since 2010 at Phoenix. He nearly had the pole last month at Bristol but was edged out by Greg Biffle by a thousandth of a second.

“I didn’t think the lap was amazing. I thought it was OK,” Allmendinger said.

Buescher takes Trucks

James Buescher passed Brad Keselowski with 10 laps remaining and pulled away to win his first career Trucks series race at Kansas Speedway.

Buescher had the fastest truck most of the day but lost the lead on the final round of pit stops.

He elected to take four tires while Keselowski took only two, and that allowed him to wrap up his first series win.