Remembering Greg Biffle's incredible 2005 season

Before 2005, Greg Biffle was a well-known talent. Before he even went full-time in Cup, he showed fans how skilled he was by winning both the Cup Series and Truck Series championships, which made him one of the two drivers ever at the time to do so.

Why the Cup Series started differently for Biffle

Greg Biffle’s rookie year was famously a struggle. While he did win the second race at Daytona, he failed to qualify for the first Las Vegas race. Missing the shootout in the Nevada desert on the same team, many considered the best team in NASCAR back then.

And he would finish 20th in points, with his Daytona win the only one of the year. 2004 saw a small improvement as he went from 20th to finishing 17th in the final points, though he still missed the first-ever chase. Which three of his teammates made it?

Still, like his rookie year, there were bright spots. He had two wins in 2004 at Michigan and in the finale at Homestead. Showing the NASCAR world both his talent and speed at the cookie-cutter tracks, he had race-winning speed. But he hadn’t put it all together yet for a consistently fast season. But in 2005, he would be big.

Greg Biffle’s phenomenal 2005 start at Daytona

Greg Biffle immediately began the year with a bang. Earning pole for the 2005 Daytona 500, then following that up with his first victory of the season at California Speedway, his first of many that season. But as I said, he’s had massive flashes of potential before inconsistency set in.

But this is when Greg Biffle gathered all he had learned from his time in the Cup Series, with the dedication and spirit he used to make it to the Cup Series on a top team, to show everyone this wasn’t another flash in the pan, and that he had become a title threat. In the first seven races of the 2005 season, he had five top tens with three top fives plus two wins. His second win came at Texas, another intermediate track.

It took him a little bit to get going, but when he did, he had his hottest streak of the season and of his career so far. From the tenth race of the 2005 season to the fifteenth race, Greg Biffle won three races and had two more sixth-place finishes in that stretch, with the only race he missed the top ten in being a 30th at Pocono.

The iconic Darlington win

He won at Darlington, a track he excelled on in the lower series, and is one of the toughest in NASCAR. Even being nicknamed “too tough to tame,” he did. He won at Dover, his victory at a short track. The exact kind of tracks he mastered and dominated in his home state of Washington, which is what started his journey into getting to Roush in Cup.

And even won again at Michigan to cap things off. Bringing his win total for 2005 to five, only fifteen races into the 2005 Cup Series season. Now, after this, Greg Biffle did cool off a bit, especially when it came to winning.

Tony Stewart stealing Greg Biffle’s spotlight

Doesn’t mean he was bad or even back to his old, inconsistent ways. He even had a stretch in the middle of the year where he had six top-five finishes in only eight races. But the wins dried up, and that’s when Tony Stewart swooped in and took over. After Greg Biffle’s Michigan, Tony Stewart would match his season win total in the next seven races.

Starting with back-to-back wins, the race after Michigan. As the regular season closed at Richmond and NASCAR headed to New Hampshire to start the Chase, it was Tony Stewart in the points lead with Greg Biffle right behind him. But that’s where he’d stay, as Tony’s three runner-up finishes would be enough to clinch him his second Cup Series title.

But Greg Biffle finished runner-up in points in the best way possible. Winning the finale at Homestead Miami for the second year in a row in an iconic finish. As Greg Biffle got into a battle with his legendary teammate, Mark Martin. The two were side by side for multiple laps, Greg Biffle using that high line momentum to hold off Mark Martin. Martin never made contact or slid in front of him, keeping it clean as Mark Martin was known to do.

Gone, but not forgotten

It would cost him, though, as Greg Biffle beat Mark Martin to the line in one of the track’s only photo finishes for his sixth and final win of 2005. He never again finished second in a season or got that Cup Series title. But he left a great legacy behind, regardless.

With multiple chase appearances and many more Cup Series wins, including two Southern 500s, and winning a truck series race at 49 years old after being out of the sport for years. And only improving it further by volunteering to help those helped by Hurricane Helene, and even rescuing someone who was stranded by the hurricane.