Sticking With The Biff: Lessons in Humanity, Competition & Friendship From Greg Biffle

In the Southern United States, where many NASCAR fans call home, you had a long list of drivers to choose from when it came to who your favorite wheelman was in the early to mid-2000s.

If you lived in or around the Portland, Ore., area, though, that list was much shorter. It included just one name: Greg Biffle.

Biffle spent countless hours watching local racing at Portland International Raceway as a boy before finally getting a chance of his own. In 1996, he got his big break when Benny Parsons noticed him in a Winston West Series race and passed his name along to Jack Roush.

One NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship, one NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series title and nearly 20 NASCAR Cup Series wins later, Biffle proved to the world that he was every bit of a wheelman as some of his idols and other drivers on the circuit — and more of one, in most cases.

Whether his equipment stacked up to the competition’s or not, Biffle didn’t care. He drove every racecar he ever sat in to its absolute limit. There have always been drivers in this sport who were good enough to net any team a win or close to it every season based on nothing but their ability behind the wheel, and Biffle was that kind of driver.

As a young man, watching hours of racing at my grandfather’s house every Sunday, I knew you could never count him out.

On the track, Biffle left a legacy of being the kind of driver you want to team up with, learn from, and be around. Chip Ganassi called him “a racer’s racer,” and the term wheelman has been used in no small amount. All of this is true and would still be gut-wrenching if that were all that could be said about this stupendous driver from the Pacific Northwest.

But it isn’t.

As impactful as Biffle was on the track, he was even more impactful off it. His humanitarian work for the people of Appalachia deserved a Nobel Peace Prize and then some. That giving spirit was evident in Biffle and in his entire family, too. There are many rural North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee residents who were positively affected by the aid that Biffle brought to their communities.

In 2010, Biffle acquired ownership stakes of two local racetracks in the Pacific Northwest, giving back not only to the community he called home during his career but also the one that gave him his start in motorsports.

His impact stretched even further than that, though. In retirement from full-time racing, Biffle took on a public persona that made him feel like everyone’s fun racing uncle. He found friendship with Garrett Mitchell, better known as Cleetus McFarland, and became a prominent figure in Mitchell’s stock-car racing efforts.

Through that friendship, more people began to see Greg Biffle the man rather than Greg Biffle the racer, and they loved him even more for it. From sewing Mitchell’s firesuit a little too short to popping dune buggy wheelies in the desert, the friendship between the two only grew. And who could forget the Road to ‘Dega, where viewers were given a window into what a cross-country RV trip with The Biff was actually like?

Whenever a tragedy like this occurs, I find myself thinking about which part of racing that person represented most. Was it the last-lap pass for the win? Was it the consummate professional? Was it the wheelman who drove every car to its limit? Was it the teammate who was always ready to help with a bump draft here or a tow there?

I’ve found myself remembering moments in which Biffle was all of these things to so many different people.

But if I had to pick one part of racing that Biffle perfectly encapsulated in his life, it would be the finer details of racing we often miss. It would be the slow and easy trot over to a different pit stall for some banter, the on-the-fly humor that can be found in every garage, the firm handshake after a race is finished or the extra set of hands rushing over to help with an impromptu pit stop in a pinch. It would be the human part of racing, most of all.

He told us to be selfless, do good deeds and expect nothing in return. He told us to be good to one another, above all else.

After all, that’s what Biffle was: a good human, through and through. There aren’t, and won’t be, many legacies like his, and I think that’s precisely how he would want it.

If there’s a racetrack way up in the sky, there are seven more beautiful souls around it today. The mourning might have only just begun for us, but for Biffle and his beloved wife, children and friends, the green flag is just about to drop, and the No. 16 Ford is about to be driven for all it’s got.