Greg Biffle met with Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s director of safety Monday morning, never imagining they’d be face-to-face again less than eight hours later.

But Biffle found himself together with Dr. Dale Carrison late in the afternoon on the opening day of the final session of Jackson Hewitt Preseason Thunder when a cut right-front tire sent his No. 16 Ford hard and flush into the Turn 2 wall.

The wreck was scarily similar to one Biffle suffered Dec. 7 near the same spot, but nowhere near as severe, he said. Biffle took a ride to the infield care center, where a life-flight helicopter sat outside, before he was examined and quickly released to return to the garage .

“It was pretty hard — a pretty good hit,” Biffle said. “But it was nothing compared to [the one in December]. My shoulder was sore already, but I’m fine.”

Are there stripper nurses working in the infield care center at LVMS or some other secret perks I’m not aware of? Slot machines that Greg is fiending to get back to?

That’s considerably faster than Greg Biffle’s pole speed of 172.403 for the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup race at LVMS, thanks mostly to the reconstruction that turned a 12-degree banking into a 20-degree banking on the big oval and moved pit lane closer to the frontstretch grandstands, making for a smoother transition from corner to straightaway.

“You’re going fast,” Kahne said. “We go fast at Charlotte, Texas and Atlanta. There’s a lot of tracks we go fast at. To me, the speed is good. … When we come back here (in March), it’s 80-85 degrees, it’ll slow down the cars some. It’ll just make for a slippery track, and that’ll help the racing.”

Most of the criticism in the past was that LVMS produced boring, single-file racing, so the early returns suggest that the changes should likely inject some speed and excitement, as far as more dynamic racing.