"[Sunday] wasn't a good championship [caliber] day for us [because] we made mistakes with the brakes," Richert said, "and we probably took a capable car of winning the race and we messed it up, so that's kind of the way we look at that."

With his fifth consecutive top-10 finish, Biffle remained 12th in the standings, but moved to within 27 points of 10th place Kyle Busch.

And as thrilled as he was to end up just outside the top five after a closing five-lap shootout in which he picked up five spots, Biffle was also relieved to not have to do any more laps of Pocono's layout of wickedly fast straights followed by daunting corners.

"It was unbelievable to drive this racetrack without brakes," Biffle said. "You know, we've got something going on [with the brakes] and it's a bit unfortunate because we could have ended up second."

The brake problem knocked Biffle far back in the field after he started seventh and drove easily into the top 10. He fell back while his team tried to solve the situation, which was only a hiccup as Biffle took the lead for the first time at Lap 121.

"We really didn't fix [the brakes]," Richert said. "We boiled the [fluid out of the] front brakes. Obviously, there wasn't enough air [cooling the brakes].

"We've taken Pocono for granted and the new rule change -- without shifting and the gear rules that [NASCAR] has put on -- just put a lot more strain on the braking.

"We came here with a totally capable braking system, but we didn't take care of the heat problem. Obviously, we just boiled the fluid. We bled [the brakes] twice and screwed a bunch of rear brake into it to try to take care of the fronts.

"So we sort of just patched it. The brakes weren't right by no means, [Biffle] just drove his butt off and got us a top-10 finish out of it."

Biffle led from Lap 121 to 130, then took the lead again at lap 140 and led until he pitted in a cycle of green-flag stops at Lap 164. When the cycle came back around to leader and eventual winner Denny Hamlin, Biffle was 3.205 seconds behind, in second with 24 laps to go.

Hamlin set the stage for the race's end when he began pulling slowly but steadily away from Biffle, but when Jeff Gordon lost the brakes in his No. 24 Chevrolet and slammed the Turn 1 wall, Biffle's race took on a whole different dimension.

"In that Jeff Gordon wreck, something happened and I cut a tire," Biffle said. "I drove over the piece of metal and poof, I heard it -- and then the right-rear tire went flat so we had to pit, unfortunately."

The interesting aspect was that only nine of the 23 cars on the lead lap stayed out, so after a red flag, Biffle sat 10th for the restart with five to go. He said he knew the winner was inevitable, even if the outcome wasn't.

"No, I wouldn't have had anything for Denny without pitting," Biffle said. "If I would have stayed out, I wouldn't have been able to beat Denny [because] Denny had a great car.

"But for sure I'd have been second because I don't think Kurt [Busch, eventual runner-up] could have beaten me. So it was unfortunate."

But both Biffle and Richert were optimistic about their status in the standings.

"I'm excited about it," Biffle said of his comeback, after 14 races, to within 27 points of the top 10. After the second race of the season, at California, Biffle was 38th in the standings.

"It hasn't come easy -- and as it was in this race, look how hard we had to work to get seventh, or sixth or wherever it was we finished," Biffle said. "We came from the back twice and then we had a flat right rear with just no laps to go, so it's just frustrating."

Richert was totally looking on the bright side.

"I mean, the car was good all day long and that was a real savior for us, because we were able to get back in the back and to move our way back up to the front without struggling too hard," Richert said. "We're feeling really good [but] we've got to finish these races and we've got to not make mistakes."