Champion in two of NASCAR's national series, a 19-time Cup winner in the No. 16 Ford, and a driver whose later career ended with his death in December 2025.
Greg Biffle was an American NASCAR driver whose Truck and Busch titles came in 2000 and 2002. He won 19 Cup Series races for Roush Fenway Racing before his death in a plane crash in December 2025, and his career spanned three national series.
Greg Biffle was an American stock car driver who won the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship in 2000 and the Busch Series title in 2002. He won 19 Cup Series races, all of them for Roush Fenway Racing, and in 2008 he opened the Chase with two straight wins. He died on 18 December 2025 when a private jet crashed while landing at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina.
Who was Greg Biffle and where did his career start?
Gregory Jack Biffle was born on 23 December 1969 in Vancouver, Washington, and was raised in nearby Camas. He began racing on short tracks around the Pacific Northwest. His first real attention came in the nationally televised Winter Heat Series during the winter of 1995 to 1996, where he dominated the championship and impressed former NASCAR champion Benny Parsons.
Parsons recommended Biffle to Jack Roush, the team owner who would shape his career. In 1996 he ran two early Winston West Series races and his first national-level Busch Series events, driving a Chevrolet for Dick Bown. A year later he competed in the NASCAR Northwest Series and won its Most Popular Driver Award.
Roush Racing promoted him to a full-time seat in the Craftsman Truck Series in 1998. He had no race wins that season, but his four pole positions were the most by a Truck Series rookie at that point, and he earned Rookie of the Year honours with an eighth-place finish in the standings.
A champion in two NASCAR series who won 19 Cup races, Biffle's career ended in tragedy in December 2025.
How did Biffle rise through NASCAR's national series?
Biffle followed his rookie year with a remarkable 1999 season in the Truck Series. He recorded nine wins, a single-season record at the time, and finished second in the standings, eight points behind champion Jack Sprague. That record stood until Corey Heim won 12 races in 2025.
In 2000 he won the Truck championship with five wins, finishing 230 points clear of his Roush teammate Kurt Busch. It was his first championship in one of NASCAR's three national series. He then moved up to the Busch Series for 2001, after a few more Truck starts that year that included a win at Phoenix.
In the Busch Series in 2001 he was named Rookie of the Year with five wins and finished fourth in the standings. The following season he won four races and recorded twenty top-five finishes in 34 starts. That performance earned him the Busch Series championship and the second national title of his career.
What were Biffle's peak years in the Cup Series?
His Cup Series career started in 2002 with a thirteenth-place finish at California, and he went full-time in 2003 backed by W. W. Grainger. He won his first Cup race that year in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona and finished second to Jamie McMurray in the Rookie of the Year race.
That made him the first Winston Cup driver to have won in all three national series one after another, rather than winning in a lower series after reaching the top tier.
His breakout came in 2005, when he won six races, including the Homestead finale, and made the Chase for the first time. He finished second in the standings, 35 points adrift of champion Tony Stewart, and tied with teammate Carl Edwards in points before winning the tiebreaker on race wins. In 2008 he was the first driver to win the opening two Chase races of a season, at New Hampshire and Dover.
Later seasons brought more wins at Pocono, Kansas, Texas and Michigan. His 2013 victory at Michigan gave Ford its 1,000th win in the series. He also set a notable record for consecutive races without a DNF, a run that ended in 2014 after a wreck at the Coke Zero 400. The 2016 season was his last full Cup season with Roush Fenway Racing.
What did Biffle do after leaving full-time Cup racing?
After finishing 23rd in the 2016 standings, Biffle and Roush parted ways, and he did not sign for a full ride in 2017. He joined NBC Sports as an analyst on NASCAR America from March 2017, and he returned to the Cup Series for part of the 2022 season with NY Racing Team, driving the No.
44 car in the Daytona 500.
He made sporadic appearances in other categories. In 2018 he raced in Stadium Super Trucks, finishing seventh and second in the two races at Road America, and in 2021 he finished second in the main event of the Superstar Racing Experience at Stafford. He had also started the Sand Outlaw Series for UTVs in 2018, and it grew into a multi-class drag racing championship.
Career summary at a glance
| Years | Series | Key results |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Craftsman Truck Series | Rookie of the Year; four poles |
| 1999 | Craftsman Truck Series | Nine wins; second in the standings |
| 2000 | Craftsman Truck Series | Champion with five wins |
| 2001 | Busch Series | Rookie of the Year; five wins; fourth in the standings |
| 2002 | Busch Series | Champion with four wins |
| 2003-2016 | Cup Series (Roush Fenway Racing) | 19 wins in the No. 16 Ford; second in 2005 standings |
| 2018 | Stadium Super Trucks | Seventh and second at Road America |
| 2019 | Craftsman Truck Series | Texas win for Kyle Busch Motorsports |
| 2021 | Superstar Racing Experience | Second in the main event |
| 2022 | Cup Series (NY Racing Team) | Daytona 500 start in the No. 44 car |
How was Biffle's death remembered?
Biffle died on 18 December 2025 when a Cessna Citation 550 private jet owned by him crashed as it tried to land at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina. All seven people aboard the aircraft died in the crash. The North Carolina State Highway Patrol named Biffle among those on board.
The tributes that followed were widespread. In January 2026 RFK Racing announced that all four of its entries in the Daytona 500 would run with Biffle's number font, and Kaulig Racing's No. 16 car would use the same font. Teams at Darlington also ran throwback schemes from his past seasons, including his 2009 Cup paint scheme.
How did Biffle's Cup career develop between 2003 and 2016?
He earned the pole for the 2004 Daytona 500, but an engine change forced him to start at the rear. That season he won at Michigan and Homestead and finished 17th in the standings. In 2006 he missed the Chase but finished 13th overall, the third-best of the drivers who did not qualify for it.
He won at Darlington and Homestead in 2006, and at Kansas in 2007, when he finished 14th in the standings and second-best among the drivers outside the Chase. In 2011 Ford's new FR9 engine helped his performance, and crew chief Greg Erwin was swapped out after Kentucky for Matt Puccia, whose arrival helped him late in the season.
In 2016 KFC sponsored him through Speedweeks and the Daytona 500. That season his first pole in four years came in qualifying for the Coke Zero 400 held at Daytona, and he finished eighth in the race.
His early Winston West and Busch Series starts
He competed in the first two races of the 1996 Winston West Series, finishing 30th at Tucson and fourth at Altamont. His first national-level start came later that year in the final two Busch Series races, piloting a Chevrolet for Dick Bown. He finished 23rd at Rockingham, but lost an engine at Homestead and finished 36th.
Truck returns and the 2024 Daytona 500
On 28 March 2019 Biffle announced he would test with Kyle Busch Motorsports at Texas, and he was then given the No. 51 truck for the race. He started sixth and won on his return to the series, his first Truck victory since 2001. In 2020 he made one more Truck start, in the No. 24 entry for GMS Racing at Darlington, and finished nineteenth.
He had been rumoured to drive the No. 44 car for NY Racing Team in the 2024 Daytona 500, but he said he would not be in the car because of unfulfilled obligations from 2022. J. J. Yeley took the seat, although Biffle's name remained displayed on the car.
In 2019 he returned to Stadium Super Trucks, starting at Mid-Ohio. That October at Surfers Paradise he set the fastest practice time but flipped his truck into a tire barrier and did not set a qualifying time. He returned to the series at the 2021 Mid-Ohio weekend and finished second in race two.
How did Biffle's records and finishing streak stand out?
In January 2009 Biffle reached a top speed of 218 mph (351 km/h) and a average lap speed of 195 mph (314 km/h) during a test at Texas World Speedway for Roush Fenway Racing, which was part of evading NASCAR's testing ban. No competitor, amateur or professional, had set a faster time at that track.
In 2014 he surpassed Clint Bowyer's record for the most consecutive races without a failure to finish, reaching 84 and tying Herman Beam's mark from the 2011 Ford 400. The week after, at the FedEx 400, he broke that record by finishing 108 laps down in 38th.
The streak ended in the Coke Zero 400, where a wreck gave him his first DNF in 89 races and a 29th-place finish.
Stadium Super Trucks and SRX in more detail
On 21 August 2018 Biffle tested a Stadium Super Truck driven by Casey Mears, and the next day he announced his series debut at Road America. That weekend he earned no points himself: the No. 57 truck was entered in place of Bill Hynes, and the points went to Hynes under the series rules.
In 2021 he joined the Superstar Racing Experience in the No. 69 car. He took the first heat win at Stafford, but a wreck in the second heat caught him out. In the main event he moved to a spare car and ended second, behind only Doug Coby.
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