Biffle, Roush on roll

Greg Biffle is making winning look easy.

Biffle won for the fifth time in 15 Nextel Cup starts this season, outdueling Tony Stewart yesterday to take the Batman Begins 400 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich.

The powerful Roush Racing team, winner of the last two season championships, won its eighth race of the season. It was another strong showing for the entire team, with three of Biffle's four teammates finishing in the top five and the fifth driver, defending series champ Kurt Busch, fading to 12th after running in the top 10 throughout most of the 200-lap event.

Stewart led a race-high 97 laps but lost a strategy battle at the end.

Biffle, who led 63 laps, was running second to Stewart when he decided to stay on the track during a late caution as Stewart and several of the other lead-lap cars pitted for fresh tires with 31 laps to go. Biffle and the rest of the leaders had pitted only about a dozen laps earlier.

Stewart, trying for his first win since last August at Watkins Glen, restarted eighth when the green flag waved on Lap 174. He got all the way to third by Lap 178, but it took him until Lap 198 to get past Biffle's teammate Matt Kenseth, the 2003 series champion.

Roush drivers Mark Martin, Kenseth, and Carl Edwards finished third through fifth, followed by Joe Nemechek, Michael Waltrip, and Elliott Sadler.

Champ Car -- Cristiano da Matta cruised to victory in the World Series of Portland (Ore.) to repeat his first-place finish in 2002 -- his last season with the series before switching to Formula One.