Category: Charlotte, North Carolina Local News

Seven weeks before his first NASCAR Cup Series win — a win that would propel the driver to rookie of the year honors and put him on the fast track to becoming one of the sport’s superstars — Greg Biffle was in trouble.

He’d broken his arm doing something rookies shouldn’t do. And no one could know that he’d done it.

“Now, Greg broke his arm by” — air quotes — “climbing in the motor home, which just so happened to be out in the sand dunes, where there are sand rails and 1,000-horse-power cars and four-wheelers,” said Jeff Burton, Biffle’s longtime teammate at Roush Fenway Racing, chuckling as he recalled the story.

“He’d concocted a plan and needed (his PR manager) Patrick (Clay Rogers) to play along with it,” Burton said. “He’s not going to tell anybody about the broken arm. Because when you’re a rookie, you can’t go out and have fun and break your arm and show up at the racetrack. That’s a good way to lose your job.”

That 2003 race was in Fontana, California. Pushing 118 degrees. Biffle, the gregarious type who’d show up early on race days, showed up just in time for practice, Burton remembered — and in a winter coat to cover his bulky cast.

The practice session would go fine. So would qualifying. Biffle spun out once on an early restart during the actual race, then put together a dignified run that yielded 18th place.

“And a bit of humility from me: I finished 19th without a broken arm,” Burton said. “And seven races later, Greg Biffle went on to win his first Cup race at Daytona. That’s Greg. We have a problem, we’re going to deal with it. We’re going to figure it out.”

Burton shared this never-publicly-told story about Biffle on Friday in Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, standing on a stage in front of seven wreaths cloaked in white roses. Those wreaths represented the seven people who died in a plane crash last month at a regional airport in Statesville. The deceased: Greg Biffle; his wife, Cristina; his daughter, Emma; his son, Ryder; his best friend, Craig Wadsworth; a pilot, Dennis Dutton; and Dennis’s son, Jack.

It was a morning of stories that flowed like milk and honey and motor oil. Phil Parsons, the brother of Benny Parsons, retold the story of how Benny introduced Biffle to Jack Roush and got him into NASCAR. That career, of course, led to 19 wins over 515 starts and a NASCAR Hall of Fame nomination — all of which the 600 mourners in the crowd had been reminded of a lot over the past 29 days.

Burton had wells of details about Biffle’s life on and off the track. Off the track, after all, is where Biffle truly became a North Carolina hero, using his personal helicopter to deliver supplies to hard-to-reach areas of Western North Carolina that were ravaged by the deadly Hurricane Helene.

Jordyn Biffle, Greg’s niece, spoke of Greg but also the rest of the Biffle family including most of all Cristina, someone she considered her best friend.

The memorial concluded with a prayer, immediately preceded by a live, acoustic rendition of Carly Pearce’s “Show Me Around” — sung beautifully by Lindsay Bowman as photos of flashed on the arena’s jumbotron: of a 5-year-old Ryder smiling with a mini-fire-suit on; of Wadsworth holding a large bass he plucked from the ocean; of a high-school Emma taking prom photos with her mother.

“They lived fully, loved deeply and gave freely,” Jordyn said. “Their lives remind us that what matters isn’t how long we’re here, but how we use the time we’re given, and how fiercely we love while we’re here.”

Garrett Mitchell was the final speaker on the stage before the prayer and song and final goodbye. Mitchell, a famous YouTuber who goes by the name Cleetus McFarland, wouldn’t go as far to say he was Greg’s best friend; that title belonged to Wadsworth, whose “no drama,” white-bearded, pure-hearted soul accompanied Biffle everywhere, Mitchell said.

But Mitchell had stories. Unending amounts of them. They not only made him laugh and recentered his focus through a tough, 23-minute testimony — “Can I have a napkin?” he asked his wife midway through to wipe his face of tears — but they also underscored or highlighted many stories that’s been shared over the month since the tragedy.

There was the story of the time Biffle — Mitchell and their friend group called him “Mr. The Biff” — invited Mitchell to his home in Lake Norman. Mitchell was flying his helicopter in, and Biffle set ablaze an acre of grass to offer Mitchell a smoke signal of where Biffle’s house was: “That was really nice of him,” Mitchell said. He then laughed: “But it was also the same spot he wanted me to land. I was like, ‘Brother, how can we land while the LZ (landing zone) is on fire?!”

There were other stories Mitchell experienced first-hand: of Biffle losing a bet and having to not wear sleeves for a whole month (he lived up to the bet even on ski slopes); of Biffle, endearingly but unfailingly, forgetting his wife’s drink every time they ventured to a bar together.

There were also stories Mitchell shared that he’d heard from earlier in Biffle’s life. That included the story of Biffle somehow maneuvering his yellow Pontiac and performing a burnout inside the gymnasium of Camas High School in his Camas, Washington, hometown for his friends and classmates — an action that caused, understandably, an expulsion as well as his father impounding his car.

The one that might speak most about Biffle was the one Mitchell told about Biffle’s son, Ryder.

“Staying at Biff’s house meant you were going for an evening trail ride with Ryder,” Mitchell said. “He loved leading myself and all of our guys here on his dirt bike trails. And I’m honored to be one of the few people to get in a racing incident with Ryder Biffle.”

By racing, of course, Mitchell meant down a driveway that slalomed through trees.

“Actually, I think I got a little heavy on the breaks into the turn, and Ryder was a little behind on the breaks,” Mitchell continued. “But anyhow, there we were, grinding to a halt on the asphalt. Now, I’m thinking, ‘This kid is going to be crying big-time here.’ But as I looked at him, he was actually smiling, and laughing, and insisted on racing again.

“Luckily it was dark out, so I don’t think his wounds showed as he passed his mom and dad. … Ryder hid it, and we kept on racing.”

Ryder didn’t know his father had done the same thing decades earlier, in a heavy winter jacket in Fontana at Cup race — the kind of race that springboarded Biffle into the nation’s consciousness, that opened other avenues for Biffle’s support and aid during Helene, that made him who he was.

Ryder simply shared Greg’s fearlessness, his heart, his mind. And he offered Greg the simplest but most powerful compliment a son could offer a father.

Said Jordyn Biffle: “Ryder had really big dreams of being just like his dad.”

This story was originally published January 16, 2026 at 3:18 PM.