White-knuckle ride

“Oh, man, I’ll tell you what, I’m nervous,’’ Biffle said Tuesday during an appearance at Fenway Park.

As well he should be.

Biffle, driver of the No. 16 Ford fielded by Roush Fenway Racing who won the first two races of last year’s Chase, dropped three spots in the standings to 11th (3,125 points) by finishing 10th in last Sunday night’s Pep Boys 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

It was no small feat, however. Biffle started 26th, battled poor track position after running 25th at the halfway point, but still managed to cobble together a decent result to cede only 7 points of his now 68-point lead over 13th-place Brian Vickers.

“I thought if I went to Richmond 75 points ahead [of 13th], which is what I had after Bristol, I figured if I could get through Atlanta with this, I’d be happy,’’ Biffle said. “I’m really close to that, but you’re just nervous, because anything can happen.’’

Biffle had no sooner contemplated the unknown when his mind began to race. “You can get into a bump-and-grind with somebody, you can get into somebody else’s accident, something could happen to your car,’’ he said. “There’s so much stuff that could happen, it makes you nervous, you know?

“If you look at it, we should be in, we should run in the top 15, and we have every time we’ve run there [at Richmond] in the past, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t. But you just never know.’’

So, has he done any calculations as to what he needs to do to clinch a berth?

“A little bit,’’ Biffle said. “They said, ‘Oh, you got to finish 11th or better and you’re locked in.’ Well, yeah, 11th or better if Vickers leads the most laps and wins. So if he doesn’t, then you’ve got to fall back to the next guy.’’

The next guy would be Kyle Busch, who enters tonight’s race 14th in the points. Busch, who trails 12th-place Matt Kenseth by 37, owns an average finish of 6.1 in nine career races at Richmond, including seven top 10s, and a victory in May.

“So if he leads the most laps and wins, which is possible, then I need to finish 17th or better; if I lead a lap, 18th or better,’’ Biffle said. “And then I only need to be one spot in front of Mark [Martin, 10th in the points]. Let’s say I finish 19th or 20th, and Mark finishes 21st, then I’m good.’’

According to NASCAR, Biffle will clinch a berth if he finishes 11th or better, regardless of any other driver’s result. His margin of error grows to 13th if he leads at least one lap; 15th if he leads the most laps.

“We just go as fast as we can every week,’’ said Biffle. Then, gazing out onto the field from his perch in a luxury box at Fenway, where the Red Sox were wrapping up batting practice, Biffle added, “It’s just like these guys out here getting ready to play. It doesn’t matter if it’s the third game of the season or if this is the third game of the World Series, they’re going to play to win.

“They’re not going up there [to the plate], saying, ‘I’m just going to hit a double; I don’t want to hit a home run right now.’ It doesn’t work like that. So we do as good as we can and the thing is, we could be more aggressive or less, but you run as aggressive as you can without wrecking. You can’t crash. It doesn’t do you any good. Yeah, all that makes a difference, but it won’t affect us until the checkered flag.’’

That’s when Biffle can expect his nervousness to subside.

“This is a pretty big deal for us,’’ said Petty, who recorded nine of his 200 NASCAR wins in a Ford. “We’re thrilled to partner with Ford. We’ve talked with a lot of folks, but in the end it came down to the success the Gilletts and I think we can achieve with Ford Racing. Right now this deal is real new. There are lots of details still left to be ironed out, so we don’t have a lot of answers for anyone right now. We’ll be working on all that in the coming days, weeks, and months, but we do intend to have everything in place before the start of next season. I’ve won races with Ford and plan to again.’’

Sorenson told Dave Moody of Sirius NASCAR Radio, “This is a tough time to not only get a ride, but get a good ride. And that’s probably the toughest thing about it is trying to put yourself in a position where you can get yourself in a car where you can see yourself having a future at . . . I’m only 23 years old and I thought this was going to be a place where I could get down with a team and start a long future, but obviously that hasn’t worked out.’’

Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com; material from personal interviews, sanctioning bodies, race teams, sponsors, and track publicity departments was used in this report.