Early years Houff started to race when he was eight, driving
go-karts. A year later, he upgraded to Mini-Cup cars and by age thirteen, he was racing Limited
Late Model cars at local tracks. During his formative years, Houff often competed at legendary short track
South Boston Speedway.
Late models Houff ran the entire 2015 CARS Super Late Model Series schedule at the age of seventeen. He won one race, in
Hudson, North Carolina, recorded four more top fives and finished fourth in points. On the strength of that season, Houff was named to the 2016
Kulwicki Driver Development program. He won the 2016 CARS season opener, but ran only the first seven races, a move he made after consulting with a strategy team. He also ran the 2016 All American 400 for
David Gilliland. Houff returned to the series on a limited basis in 2017. After not racing since the 2021 Cup Series finale at
Phoenix, Houff attempted to run
South Boston Speedway's Crown Jewel race and the first race of the Virginia Triple Crown, the Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200.
ARCA Racing Series Houff teamed up with
Mason Mitchell and his team to run the opening race of the
2017 ARCA Racing Series after a test at
Daytona International Speedway. After leading laps and earning an award for leading at halfway, he was caught up in a wreck. On January 8, 2018, Houff and
Mason Mitchell Motorsports announced that they would run at least four races together in 2018, at Daytona,
Pocono Raceway,
Michigan International Speedway and
Charlotte Motor Speedway. He would work together with Mark Setzer, his crew chief from his Xfinity Series races.
Xfinity Series in 2017 On March 21, 2017, it was announced that Houff would drive two
NASCAR Xfinity Series races for
Precision Performance Motorsports, at
Bristol Motor Speedway and
Richmond International Raceway. He tested for the races at
Motor Mile Speedway. At Bristol, Houff hovered around the top ten most of the day after a strong qualifying run but damage due to an incident with
Ross Chastain dropped him to fifteenth. After the race at Richmond, Houff signed on for two more races with the team, at
Iowa Speedway and
Kentucky Speedway. He took advantage of good pit strategy at
Iowa to score a career-best twelfth but spun during his qualifying lap at Kentucky and failed to qualify. He made starts at Kentucky and Kansas, finishing in the mid-twenties. He failed to qualify for his final scheduled start of the year, at Homestead. Houff was left without a ride as
PPM shuttered its team at the end of the 2017 season. On September 7, 2018, it was announced that Houff would make his 2018 Xfinity debut with
JD Motorsports' No. 4 entry at Richmond. After finishing 31st in a one-off for the team, a deal came together on October 18, 2018 for Houff to run the final four races of the Xfinity Series season in the organization's No. 15 entry. The deal was made quickly, with Houff finalizing the deal and traveling to
Kansas Speedway for the first race of the agreement on the same day.
Cup Series in 2021 On January 22, 2019,
Spire Motorsports announced Houff would drive the team's No. 77 on a part-time
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule starting at
ISM Raceway. Early estimates pegged the number of races at approximately half of the 36-race schedule. On November 27, 2019,
StarCom Racing announced that Houff would drive the team's No. 00 on a full-time basis during the 2020 and 2021 seasons. At the
2020 O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at
Texas, Houff made a last-minute decision to enter pit-road with 29 laps to go, clipping the cars of
Christopher Bell and
Matt DiBenedetto in the process before crashing into the outside retaining wall. He was later on criticized by DiBenedetto and
Brad Keselowski, who proposed that NASCAR should add a relegation structure that would demote developmental drivers to the lower divisions should they commit a mistake similar to Houff's. Later that season, in the
2020 Yellawood 500 at
Talladega Superspeedway, he finished a career high thirteenth place after avoiding multiple accidents on the ending laps. In 2021, Talladega would again be Houff's strong suit, as he scored a season-high nineteenth place finish in the
2021 YellaWood 500. StarCom Racing would shut down at the end of 2021, leaving Houff without a ride. ==Personal life==