Biffle, Martin, Montoya gain momentum, ground at TMS

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Mark Martin, Greg Biffle, Juan Montoya and Matt Kenseth executed a net gain of 21 positions in the Sprint Cup standings after Sunday's Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway; and in the case of Biffle and Montoya, they were both coming forward at race's end on the race track, as well.

Biffle ended the day a fast-closing third; Kenseth had his first top-five finish since he won the season's first two races, in fifth; Martin was sixth and Montoya right behind him in seventh.

On Sunday, Biffle had the biggest reason to be disappointed, as his No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford had led three times for 93 laps, second only to race winner Jeff Gordon's total of 105 circuits out front. But a pit-road miscue with less than 100 laps remaining knocked Biffle down the running order, and it took him the rest of the race to come back to third.

"Unfortunately, we had some lug nuts fall off or something on a pit stop, and lost a lot of track position," Biffle said. "It's really, really hard here to fight your way back on track position. It's difficult when you start 12th or 13th, because you really start 26th, because you've got all the cars on the inside, a lap down, as well. It just takes time to get back up through all that traffic.

"We worked our way all the way back to fourth, third -- 15 more laps, would've passed [runner-up Jimmie Johnson] and then a little while longer we could've gotten [Gordon]. But, I just ran out of time, lost track position and weren't able to capitalize on it. Had the fastest car [Sunday], it looked like, and not always does the fastest car win."

Other than keeping his head up, the most important aspect for Biffle and his team was that he gained eight positions in the standings, to move him to 15th in points and the same spot in the owners' standings; just 60 points out of a Chase position.

Biffle said that made his day the equivalent of a moral victory.

"The car just handled extremely well [Sunday]," Biffle said. "I wasn't probably as good in traffic as I needed to be -- that's probably one thing that I needed a little bit of work on. I could get by lapped cars pretty quick; it looked like other guys had trouble. But, when it was side by side and kind of jumbled up a little bit, I had just a little bit of trouble."

In the end, Biffle said his fast car made him feel better about the pit-stop error.

"It's not bad luck," Biffle said of the critical mistake, which he shared with teammate Carl Edwards, who was leading when he was knocked back to 11th, ultimately finishing 10th (read more). "You know, when you leave a wheel loose or you stop on the air hose or you do something else, that's not bad luck -- that's school of hard knocks, that's making a mistake. That's the way it is -- we're all human and we all make mistakes.

"You make your own luck a lot of times. You get a flat tire, that's bad luck. When you have problems -- when you slide over the line or it falls off the jack or you have something else -- that's not necessarily bad luck. Something wasn't done normally, it boils down to something wasn't done right or a guy made a mistake or I made a mistake. I say you make your own luck, and things happen."

• Press Pass: Biffle talks about his third-place finish (Continued)