Daytona 500 winner reflects on NASCAR's tight-knit family amid recent tragedies in sport

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., the Daytona 500 winner from 2023, discussed the recent tragedies in NASCAR, including the deaths of Greg Biffle and Denny Hamlin's father, just weeks before the 2026 seasons gets underway.

The NASCAR world suffered two tragedies just before the turn of the calendar with the shocking deaths of Greg Biffle and Dennis Hamlin, the father of current driver Denny Hamlin.

Biffle, along with his wife and two children, was among seven people killed when his plane crashed near a North Carolina airport runway in early December. Less than two weeks later in the state, the elder Hamlin died in a house fire that also left Hamlin's mother injured.

The Daytona 500 will be run next month to kick off the 2026 NASCAR season, but it will certainly be with heavy hearts.

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Ricky Stenhouse Jr. waits during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on May 31, 2025, in Lebanon, Tennessee. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

"Yeah, NASCAR and motorsports in general is, you could say big, but it's a small family," 2023 Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. said in a recent interview with Fox News Digital. "It's a massive footprint, but everybody's really integrated, really close, and everybody feels that no matter what happens.

"You know, Greg and his family, super sad, super tragic, and then you have Denny, who, it's very public that he was trying to win that championship for his dad, didn't think his dad was going to make it that much longer. But who knows, he may have won the championship this year and his dad could have made it. But the tragic fire that took his dad and has his mom in the hospital, like, man, it's just, it's been a crazy,