The NASCAR Hall of Fame announced its Class of 2027 on Tuesday, with Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, and Larry Phillips set to be eternally enshrined in Charlotte next winter. Two of them are no surprise, but the third choice was more than a little bit controversial.
Harvick was a no-brainer, with 60 career Cup Series wins and a championship in 2014. Phillips might not be a household name, but the grassroots legend accumulated five NASCAR Weekly Series championships in his day and is one of NASCAR's 75 Greatest Drivers.
That leaves Burton, whose resume reads as a classic "Hall of Pretty Good" candidate with 21 Cup Series wins and a best points finish of third in 2000. If there were no better options, then sure, it's not some crime against humanity to put him in.
But there were. And we all know who.
Greg Biffle gets laughably snubbed from the Hall of Fame only five months after his untimely death
It felt like almost a given that Greg Biffle would be part of the 2027 class, due to the timing of his fatal private jet crash back in December. But even on the merits of his career accomplishments alone, this was the right time to put him in.
Biffle was a champion in both the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and the Busch (now O'Reilly Auto Parts) Series. He recorded 19 career Cup Series wins and finished second in the points in 2005, a season in which he won a series-high six races.
Really, the only advantage Burton has over Biffle is in the win column, and context matters. The Washington native was a rookie at age 33 (compared to Burton's 27) and competed in six fewer full seasons. His average wins per year of 1.36 clears the current NBC analyst's mark of 1.05.
Biffle also spent his peak years competing against the deepest fields in Cup Series history, while Burton's best seasons came in the late 1990s and very early 2000s during a transition period between eras. Add in the lower series titles, and the clear advantage goes to "The Biff".
Other than Burton being involved in the media, there's really no way to make sense of this decision. It's almost as if voters specifically didn't vote for Biffle simply due to avoid the optics of "he only got in because he died."
But that wouldn't have been the case at all.
Greg Biffle deserves to be a NASCAR Hall of Famer. And it's a slap in the face to his memory that he didn't get in this year.
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