Business & Finance Club - Kansas City : Greg Biffle cashed in on a promise made by Ford on Sunday.

Biffle blazed his way to victory in the Sprint Cup Price Chopper 400 at Kansas Speedway, just a few hours after Ford announced it would pay a $100,000 bonus to any of its Chase teams that won a race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Biffle, one of three Ford drivers in the Chase, grabbed the lead from teammate Carl Edwards after a restart with 28 laps to go and beat Jimmie Johnson’s Chevrolet by a whopping 7.638 seconds in front of an estimated 100,000 fans on an ideal day for racing.

Johnson, the four-time defending Sprint Cup champion, moved into the lead in the Chase standings, eight points ahead of Denny Hamlin, who finished 12th in a Toyota.

It was only the second win by Roush Fenway Racing this season — both by Biffle — which is what prompted the incentive offered by Jamie Allison, director of Ford North American Motorsports.

“I put a little reward out there for the Ford team to win, and sure enough it came through,” Allison said. “We were long overdue.”

Biffle, whose first win this season was Aug. 1 at Pocono Raceway, began Sunday’s third race in the Chase a distant ninth in the standings and realized his chances at contending for a championship would be dead without a solid finish at Kansas, where he had five top-three finishes and a 2007 win in his last six starts.

“This was a go, or no go (for the Chase) for us,” said Biffle, who moved up just one position in the standings but gained 55 points on the top spot. “Everybody asked us last week if we’re out of the Chase, have we given up, whatever the case was. The 16 team will never give up. They’ve been talking about all the other guys, so we’ll give them something to talk about the next couple of weeks.”

Because of Biffle’s previous success at Kansas Speedway, he came to the track brimming with confidence.

“I felt early on in the race, we were going to finish in the top five,” Biffle said. “I just needed to figure out a way how I was going to win the race.

“It was amazing. It was literally the best car I’ve ever driven here. I could drive anywhere on the racetrack. I could enter any line in the corner, push the gas down whenever I felt like it. It was pretty incredible.”

Biffle made his first big move when he passed Tony Stewart, who led a race-most 76 laps, on the 188th of 267 laps. The leaders all came in for a green-flag pit stop with 32 laps to go, and Biffle’s crew, known as the “Pit Bulls” earned its share of the $100,000 with a speedy change of four tires and tank of gas that enabled Biffle to lead the final 29 laps and add the winner’s share of $298,525 to the Roush Fenway booty.

“Anybody who has been around me a long time knows I’m not too generous with my money,” joked team owner Jack Roush. “Ford Motor Company stepped up, and they realize drivers don’t do it for the money, the crew doesn’t do it for the money, certainly I don’t, but they would put up an additional $100,000 … I hope they don’t regret that.

“It was showing their interest and seeing to it that we could do all we could do and wanting to reward the guys if they could pull it off. That was fun.”

No one appreciated the extra cash more than the crew members who climb over the wall and change the tires, fill the fuel tank and make adjustments to the car.

“This Pit Bull group we’ve got is pretty underestimated, certainly not underappreciated by me,” said Biffle’s crew chief Greg Erwin. “As far as the money goes, we’ll let Jack and the folks at Roush decide how it gets divided on our side. They all have kids to put through college, too, so I’m sure they appreciate it.