It’s rare in life when our second act is better than our first. For professional athletes, this conundrum is typically the catalyst for their life’s work once their career has ended. It’s the million-dollar question: “What do I do now that this is over?”
It’s hard to follow up entertaining millions of people on a weekly basis. Being revered at the height of your powers for suiting up every weekend and doing what so many dream of, and what so few are able to do. Some fade into the background, some give back to the game, and some give back to the community. In the end, I’d say that it’s much more complicated than that – Greg Biffle’s story is the only proof you’ll need of that.
As far as NASCAR racing is concerned, Greg Biffle is one of the greatest drivers who ever lived. A champion in the Craftsman Truck Series, as well as the Busch Series, Biffle is one of a select few to have won at least once in each major NASCAR series. He was named one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers in 2023.
As a kid, I was always rooting for Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart, but I was never mad seeing Greg Biffle win. He was an easy guy to root for. He was a clean driver and had a personality that made the sport better for having him in it.
I remember being disappointed in the way that his full-time career ended. There was no fanfare. The next year that Daytona rolled around, he just wasn’t there. But I would argue that the years that followed his full-time driving career were more important than any of the years before.
As a semi-retired driver, he made a few starts here and there (including an electric comeback victory at Texas in 2019 in a Kyle Busch Motorsports truck), along with mentoring young drivers (like Garrett Mitchell, better known online as Cleetus McFarland), but his work within the North Carolina area was more impactful than any race he could have won.
After Hurricane Helene made landfall in September 2024, Biffle, a private pilot, used his own personal aircraft to deliver food and supplies to people stranded in rural North Carolina. Originally, he was preparing for a vacation in the Bahamas, but Biffle ended up spending twelve days flying back and forth, helping thousands of people, with some help from others within the NASCAR community.
What started as one man trying to do his part to help others, inspired hundreds of others to do the same. For his efforts, he was recognized by the National Motorsports Press Association with the Myers Brothers Award last year.
As today’s sad news reached social media, I’ve spent much of my day talking with friends, reminiscing about watching a childhood icon and thinking about all of the good that he did.
Not only have we lost Greg Biffle today, but we’ve also lost six others, including his wife and two children. People have lost friends and family that stood as pillars of community. This is a tragedy across all fronts. The greatest way to remember the loved ones that we’ve lost is to make impacts in the lives of others in the ways that those people have impacted us. In using their time here as a blueprint for affecting positive change, we keep them alive for the rest of time.
Days like today remind me of one of my favorite quotes, coming from the Roman poet Virgil: “No day shall erase you from the memory of time.”
Greg Biffle was a champion driver, but he ran his greatest race long after he took his final checkered flag.
May he, and the six others that were lost, rest in peace.