Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Remembering The Great Greg Biffle | Charlie Marlow Show

Transcript

Remembering The Great Greg Biffle | Charlie Marlow Show · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  Hello, everybody. Charlie Marlowe here.
• 0:02
  Just want to talk a little bit about the horrible accident
• 0:06
  yesterday in North Carolina, the plane crash that took the lives
• 0:10
  of Greg Biffle and his wife and his two children and Craig
• 0:16
  Wadsworth and others. And I saw a tweet from Mark
• 0:21
  Martin today. He was saying he was angry,
• 0:25
  saying he knows aviation is a Safeway to travel.
• 0:29
  But but man, the history of NASCAR with some of these plane
• 0:34
  crashes. And I, I thought about the same
• 0:36
  thing yesterday. And just to let everybody know.
• 0:40
  So when I saw this news on X yesterday, I was literally about
• 0:46
  ready to get in a plane myself and fly from Long Beach back
• 0:51
  home here to Saint Louis. We were out there for a couple
• 0:53
  days for my son's allergy treatments and it's just such a
• 0:56
  weird thing to to read about a plane crash right as you
• 1:00
  yourself are about ready to board a plane.
• 1:06
  But a lot of thoughts going through my mind.
• 1:09
  First off, Greg Biffle, and I'm not going to pretend like I knew
• 1:13
  Greg Biffle and that he was my friend and, and all that I, I've
• 1:16
  been relatively new to the NASCAR community the last four
• 1:20
  years working with, with Kenny Wallace on his YouTube channel.
• 1:23
  But I did cover a, a good bit of NASCAR in 2006 and 2007 when I
• 1:29
  was working in Lansing, MI. And I remember, I remember
• 1:34
  interviewing Greg Biffle a little bit back then in
• 1:36
  Michigan. I also took a couple trips to
• 1:38
  Charlotte and he obviously knew he was, he was one of the better
• 1:43
  drivers at that time. And here's a guy who won a
• 1:47
  championship in trucks, won a championship in what we're
• 1:52
  calling now the O'Reilly Auto Parts series, finished second in
• 1:57
  in Cup one year, almost had championships across all three
• 2:02
  series, 1 of NASCAR's 75 greatest drivers, a guy up there
• 2:08
  from the Pacific Northwest. And also just a guy who he
• 2:13
  seemed like such a good guy. He he was a good guy.
• 2:16
  He was a great guy. And again, I'm not trying to
• 2:19
  pretend like I was friends with him, but I feel like I kind of
• 2:23
  got to know him through content and through YouTube and through
• 2:27
  Cletus McFarlane and through Greg Biffle's own YouTube
• 2:31
  channel and Kenny Wallace had him on Kenny conversation.
• 2:35
  I think it was two years ago. So I remember talking to him a
• 2:37
  bit there and, and obviously watching and producing that
• 2:41
  podcast and he just seemed like such a good, fun dude.
• 2:46
  I mean, loved to kind of work with gadgets and he was so smart
• 2:50
  with anything with an engine and could fly a plane or a
• 2:54
  helicopter. I remember that picture where
• 2:58
  he's got the shirt on and it says something like my boat
• 3:01
  doesn't run on. Thanks.
• 3:03
  Just a guy who loved to to joke around.
• 3:07
  And you could certainly see his his great personality coming out
• 3:12
  as he's hanging out with Cletus and doing all those, those
• 3:15
  events and his own YouTube, like I said.
• 3:19
  But then Greg Biffle, the man and and everybody's echoing
• 3:22
  this, but he had such a great career as a racer, but then he
• 3:27
  had an even better post NASCAR career with what he was doing on
• 3:33
  the humanitarian side of things and flying those helicopter
• 3:37
  missions into the mountains of North Carolina after Hurricane
• 3:41
  Helene. And I mean the bravery, but also
• 3:45
  just going out there and, and doing so much for others and
• 3:49
  delivering food and supplies and and Starlink.
• 3:53
  And I remember seeing the videos where he's trying to land his
• 3:56
  plane and in tight spots. And there was that one famous
• 3:59
  video where somebody was trying to catch his attention with a
• 4:02
  mirror. They're trying to reflect off
• 4:04
  the sun and he and he found him and he was able to land after
• 4:08
  multiple attempts and just just doing so much for others because
• 4:13
  he had the the resources and and it was the right thing to do to
• 4:17
  help out people that were just ravaged by that terrible storm.
• 4:22
  What was that last last year? So just such a a horrible day
• 4:29
  yesterday and and you saw the news and you were hoping, you
• 4:33
  were hoping for the best, but knowing that the the worst was
• 4:39
  certainly possible. And you saw a bunch of people on
• 4:42
  X saying, you know, pray and you you saw that it was Greg
• 4:46
  Biffle's plane and you just hoped that he wasn't on it.
• 4:50
  I mean, the video of that plane crash is just just horrific.
• 4:54
  If, if you haven't seen it, and I'm not saying you should go
• 4:57
  look at it, but it's obviously really, really bad there.
• 5:03
  So just such a, such a great humanitarian.
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  And then also I want to talk about Craig Wadsworth just
• 5:09
  because I'm, I'm talking about him through the lens of, of
• 5:12
  Kenny Wallace. And I never knew Craig
• 5:15
  Wadsworth, but listening to Kenny's tribute to his friend,
• 5:18
  if you don't know, Craig Wadsworth was Kenny's motorhome
• 5:22
  driver for, he said about six years.
• 5:24
  And the only reason they parted ways was because Kenny retired
• 5:29
  and then Craig went to work with Greg Biffle.
• 5:31
  And again, if you're familiar with Greg Biffle and Cletus and
• 5:35
  their content, they called him Facebook Craig.
• 5:37
  And he was always around and, you know, a big fun guy, it
• 5:41
  looked like. Again, I'm not trying to pretend
• 5:42
  like I was friends with these guys.
• 5:44
  I'm just kind of, we're all processing this ourselves.
• 5:49
  And the reason I bring this up though, is because Kenny told a
• 5:52
  great story about how Craig Wadsworth, his whole MO was no
• 5:58
  drama. And so obviously I didn't know
• 6:00
  where that came from. But that's something that Kenny
• 6:03
  Wallace has said to me a million times.
• 6:06
  And I I kind of live by that same philosophy.
• 6:09
  I remember where I used to work at Fox 2 in Saint Louis, me and
• 6:13
  one of my Co workers, we'd always joke because whenever
• 6:15
  there was an issue, I'd always say, we'll figure it out, we'll
• 6:19
  figure it out. And that was just kind of my way
• 6:21
  of like, we'll get through it. It's not that big of a deal.
• 6:23
  We're we're talking about sports here.
• 6:25
  And the same thing with Kenny, if something goes bad with a
• 6:29
  podcast or a show, at the end of the day, it's it's entertainment
• 6:34
  for YouTube, for podcasts, like it's not that big of a deal.
• 6:38
  So when Kenny told me that story that the whole no drama thing
• 6:41
  came from Craig Wadsworth, because when Craig would drive
• 6:45
  the motorhome, Kenny basically said, look, if there was a flat
• 6:47
  tire back in the day with another motorhome driver, they'd
• 6:50
  call him and be all kind of frazzled.
• 6:53
  And with Craig, it was just a no drama, I'm going to handle it.
• 6:56
  And I just think that's a that's a great way to go through life
• 6:59
  just to to realize, I mean, there are important things in
• 7:01
  life, but sometimes just a take a deep breath, no drama, fix the
• 7:07
  problem and, and move on. Just just such a weird, such a
• 7:15
  weird day yesterday and today. You, you can tell the whole
• 7:19
  NASCAR community has kind of just stopped for a day or so.
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  I mean, all kinds of great tributes to Greg Biffle and, and
• 7:29
  obviously, like I said, Craig Wadsworth, part of the NASCAR
• 7:31
  community as well, but just so many great tributes out there
• 7:35
  from everybody and, and great pictures and video of Greg
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  Biffle winning races. And I, I looked at it, I, I
• 7:45
  think Greg Biffle had won something like 50 plus races
• 7:48
  across all three series, won a bunch of truck races, bunch of
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  O'Reilly Auto Parts Cup. I think it was something like 17
• 7:54
  wins. Don't, don't quote me on that.
• 7:57
  And the fact that it was his birthday next week, Greg Biffle.
• 8:01
  So he would have been what he would have been 50-6 years old.
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  And also you see, you see the pictures of his young family and
• 8:11
  it really hit home for me when you see those pictures of them
• 8:13
  on the beach, he and his wife and his two kids.
• 8:16
  His, his daughter's older than my daughter, but the son, I
• 8:20
  think the son is 5. The daughter's a little older.
• 8:23
  But again, I'm looking at that picture.
• 8:24
  I'm thinking to myself, because I have a, a daughter and a son,
• 8:29
  my daughter's only seven, my son's 4.
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  But I just looked at the, the older girl and the younger son
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  and I just kind of said, whoa, that's, that's essentially my
• 8:38
  family with husband, wife, oldest daughter, youngest son.
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  And you just, you think about them.
• 8:45
  They were going down to hang out with Cletus and I believe from
• 8:47
  reports they're going to go to Bahamas for a vacation, I'm
• 8:51
  guessing for the holidays. And you just think about how
• 8:54
  this hits. That whole family is now gone.
• 9:00
  So yeah, there's, there's really, there's really no words.
• 9:03
  And I know I'm talking here and we're 9 minutes in or whatever,
• 9:06
  but I, I think Kenny said it best yesterday, just sharing
• 9:11
  stories, talking about it. You see so many people who have
• 9:16
  commented how much Biff meant to them through his NASCAR career,
• 9:20
  how much respect they had for him as a humanitarian with what
• 9:24
  he was doing with Hurricane Helene.
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  Just man, they, they always say the good, you know, the good die
• 9:30
  young. Why, why do they take the good
• 9:32
  ones so early? And man, Greg Biffle was, was
• 9:34
  one-of-a-kind. And he had just, it seemed like
• 9:37
  he had just started this 2nd chapter of his, of his post
• 9:42
  NASCAR career with what he was doing with the humanitarian
• 9:45
  efforts. And obviously that that would
• 9:48
  have continued. And you know, I, I'm sure
• 9:51
  whether it's Presidential Medal of Freedom, whatever, I mean,
• 9:55
  he, he's going to get some great awards that he deserves.
• 9:59
  And also I, I, I'm sure NASCAR should start an award in Greg
• 10:04
  Biffle's name. I know a lot of people have
• 10:06
  talked about that in, in baseball, you have the Roberto
• 10:08
  Clemente Award for humanitarian work and charity work in your
• 10:12
  community. And no better way to pay tribute
• 10:15
  to Greg Biffle than to do something like that.
• 10:17
  And I'm sure NASCAR is already thinking about that.
• 10:20
  So just such an odd couple of days, everybody.
• 10:23
  And you know what, we, we got some more content to post for
• 10:27
  Kenny Wallace, but it was just kind of a, a thing where we just
• 10:31
  kind of put everything on hold and paid tribute to Greg Biffle
• 10:35
  and his family and Craig Wadsworth and everybody that
• 10:38
  lost their lives in that horrible, horrible plane crash.
• 10:41
  So I'm not going to ramble on too much more, but just continue
• 10:45
  on this video and, and Kenny's videos as well to comment about
• 10:48
  your memories about Greg Biffle. And at this point, you know,
• 10:51
  that's what we can do to, to keep his, his memory alive.
• 10:54
  So have a great weekend, everybody, have a great
• 10:57
  Christmas, New Year, holidays and all that.
• 11:00
  And we'll talk to you soon. Thanks a lot.
• 11:03
  We'll see ya.