After getting "the call" that Jack Roush wanted him in his stable, Greg Biffle has won Roush Racing a Truck Series championship and two Rookie-of-the-Year honors. Now he hopes to drive his No. 60 Grainger Ford to a NASCAR Busch Series championship.
My story is probably a lot different than most drivers in NASCAR. I wasn't born into a racing family, and I didn't start racing at an early age running go-karts or midgets with hopes of someday competing against NASCAR's elite. I wish sometimes that maybe I would've done so; but I believe things happen for a reason and this was the path chosen for me.
To be honest, in my younger days I actually thought the idea of running in circles was ridiculous. It wasn't until I was about 17 years old that I got the racing bug.
One weekend my dad and I went out to Portland Speedway in Portland, Oregon, to watch some Friday night races. Something inside me changed. I really enjoyed the competition and decided I had to take a shot at racing. My dad and I built a Street Stock and I finished in the Top 10 in my first race at Portland Speedway. The entire experience was like no other and, from that moment on, I was hooked.
I raced on and off for a few years after that, and then I opened a business (J&S Racing) in 1990 that built and maintained NASCAR Late Model cars for teams running in the Northwest region. I focused more of my attention on the business rather than actually racing for the next few years, but I believe doing that had a huge impact on the success I've had behind the wheel. I learned so much about the mechanical aspects of the cars.
My racing career started going full steam when I won track championships at both Portland Speedway and Tri-City Raceway (West Richland, Washington). We won 16 of 24 races at Portland and 17 out of 19 at Tri-City, only to lose the national NASCAR Weekly Racing Series championship by one win.
Finally in 1997, the opportunity to race with NASCAR's elite looked a little better when Benny Parsons came to my rescue. He saw me compete in the Winter Heat Series at Tucson Raceway Park in Arizona and I guess he saw something that others hadn't. After winning back-to-back Winter Heat championships, Benny became an advocate of mine and told every owner that they couldn't pass up on the opportunity to put me behind the wheel of one of their race cars. Still, the phone wasn't ringing.
Later that year I got a call out of the blue from Roush Racing. I was working in the shop when Geoff Smith (president of Roush Racing) told me Jack wanted me to drive for his newly formed No. 50 Craftsman Truck Series team. He hired me right there over the phone, sight unseen.
The rest is history. Jack Roush, Grainger, Randy Goss and the guys I've worked with over the last few years have had a great deal of success. We won Rookie-of-the-Year honors in 1998, a record nine races in 1999, and a championship in the Truck Series in 2000. We jumped up to the Busch Series last year and won rookie honors again. This year we are running for the Busch championship, and then next year we're all moving up to Winston Cup together.
Looking back on my career so far, I pride myself in the things I've done because I worked hard for all of it. It's been an awesome ride and I wouldn't change a thing.