CUP: Brad Keselowski Gives The Blue Deuce Its Third All-Star Last-Place Finish

SOURCE: Rubbin's Racin'

Brad Keselowski finished last in Saturday’s running of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway when his #2 Miller Lite Ford fell out with transmission trouble after he completed 2 of the race’s 90 laps.

Keselowski, the defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion, had a strong start to 2013, finishing out of the top ten just once in the first eight races of the year.  However, following a 33rd-place finish at Richmond last month, he has since struggled to finishes of 15th and 32nd.  Nevertheless, he remains 7th in points going into next week’s Coca-Cola 600, a race his Penske Racing team won with Kurt Busch in 2010.

At Charlotte, Keselowski raced in a special paint scheme that covered his Ford in fan-submitted photos.  He qualified 12th in the car during a session in which several drivers slid out of their pit box during the mandatory stop.  On race night, he was running in a thick pack of traffic just in the early laps when something in the drive train shattered entering turn three, causing him to fall off the pace.  After limping around the track for a lap, he pulled behind the wall and out of the race.

As of this writing, Keselowski has still yet to finish last in any of his 136 career Cup Series points races.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was Keselowski’s first last-place finish in the NASCAR All-Star Race.
*This was the third last-place finish for owner Roger Penske’s #2 Miller Lite machine in the All-Star Race.  In 2002, Rusty Wallace’s Ford crashed after 14 laps, and in 2006, Kurt Busch lost the engine on his Dodge after 33 laps.
*Keselowski is the first All-Star last-place finisher to fall out with transmission trouble since 1994, when Terry Labonte’s #5 Kellogg’s Chevrolet broke after 36 laps.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
22) #2-Brad Keselowski / 2 laps / transmission
21) #55-Mark Martin / 87 laps / crash
20) #10-Danica Patrick / 90 laps / running
19) #34-David Ragan / 90 laps / running
18) #15-Clint Bowyer / 90 laps / running / led 11 laps

CUP: Timmy Hill Trails Field In Sprint Showdown Debut

SOURCE: Debbie Ross, Skirts and Scuffs

Timmy Hill finished last in Saturday’s running of the Sprint Showdown at the Charlotte Motor Speedway when his #32 OXY Water Ford fell out with overheating trouble after he completed 6 of the race’s 40 laps.

The 20-year-old Hill has made ten starts in Cup Series points races, including five this year.  All of his starts in 2013 have come behind the wheel of the #32 fielded by FAS Lane Racing.  FAS Lane was founded by the reorganized Latitude 43 Motorsports in 2011, forming a new team both owned and crew chiefed by Frank “Frankie” Stoddard.

Hill’s 2013 debut at Fontana in March was marred by a sudden loss of fluid exiting turn two, causing several of the leaders to slip into the outside wall.  Since then, Hill has still neverfinish last, but has finished no better than 33rd.  He is still looking to improve on his career-best 22nd he earned at Kansas last fall.

Hill qualified 20th for Saturday’s 23-car race at an average speed of 185.861 mph.  He fell out during the first 20-lap segment, followed nine laps later by the #44 No Label Watches Ford of Scott Riggs.  Riggs was making his first Cup start of any kind since Martinsville, and rumors of Xxtreme Motorsports replacing Riggs with Mike Bliss for the moment appear to be untrue.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was Hill’s first last-place finish in the Sprint Showdown.  He was the first driver to finish last in his Showdown debut since 2008, when open-wheel star Patrick Carpentier crashed his #10 Valvoline Dodge after two laps.
*This was the first time a last-place finisher in the Showdown fell out with “overheating” as the listed cause.
*This was the first last-place finish in the Showdown for car #32.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
23) #32-Timmy Hill / 6 laps / overheating
22) #44-Scott Riggs / 15 laps / vibration
21) #7-Dave Blaney / 24 laps / brakes
20) #36-J.J. Yeley / 27 laps / overheating
19) #52-Brian Keselowski / 36 laps / running

TRUCKS: Chris Jones Moves To Fifth In LASTCAR Truck Series Rankings

SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons

Chris Jones picked up the 6th last-place finish of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career in Friday’s North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway when his unsponsored #93 RSS Racing Chevrolet fell out with clutch problems after he completed 4 of the race’s 134 laps.

The finish was Jones’ first of the season and his first in a Truck Series race since last fall at Texas, seven races ago.  Jones is now tied with Rick Crawford, Mike Hurlbert, and Butch Miller for fifth in the all-time LASTCAR Truck Series rankings.  Only five other drivers have scored more last-place finishes in series history.

Jones was making his third start of the year in the #93 fielded by owner Rod Sieg’s RSS Racing, the team that won the last three LASTCAR Truck Series titles with drivers Mike Garvey and Dennis Setzer.  His previous two finishes were a pair of 34th-place runs: he crashed late in the race at Rockingham, then parked at Kansas.

At Charlotte, Jones qualified 29th at an average speed of 175.798 mph, ranking him seventh among the thirteen “go-or-go-homers” on the entry list.  Jones pulled behind the wall during the opening green-flag run, edging German Quiroga by five laps.

Failing to qualify for Friday’s race were owner-drivers Norm Benning and Jennifer Jo Cobb.  Cobb, the last-place finisher at Martinsville, was the victim of a bizarre theft on May 11 when her hauler, containing $279,000 of equipment, was stolen from her shop in Mooresville, North Carolina.  One of the suspects was Rockingham last-placer Mike Harmon, who was arrested on Wednesday, then released on a $10,000 bond.  Harmon qualified for Friday’s race in the #84 Chevrolet he shares with owner Chris Fontaine, and he finished 24th.  Cobb, driving a loaned truck from another team, withdrew after engine trouble.

Jones, Cobb, and Harmon join Scott Riggs and Scott Saunders as the only Truck Series last-place finishers so far in 2013.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was the first last-place finish for the #93 in a Truck race at Charlotte since 2010, when Mike Garvey lost the engine on his #93 S&W Services Chevrolet after nine laps of the North Carolina Education Lottery 200.
*This was Jones’ first last-place finish at Charlotte, and the first time a truck finished last at Charlotte with clutch trouble as the listed cause.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
36) #93-Chris Jones / 4 laps / clutch
35) #77-German Quiroga / 9 laps / crash
34) #99-Bryan Silas / 13 laps / crash
33) #75-Caleb Holman / 20 laps / crash
32) #18-Joey Coulter / 90 laps / running

LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Mike Harmon, Jennifer Jo Cobb, Chris Jones, Scott Riggs, Scott Saunders (1)

LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) #0-Jennifer Jo Cobb, #10-Jennifer Jo Cobb, #84-Chris Fontaine, #92-Ricky Benton, #93-RSS Racing (1)

LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet, Dodge (2)
2nd) Ford (1)

A Tribute To Dick Trickle (1941-2013)

Final Laps of the 1990 Winston Open at Charlotte

Cue to 19:04 To See Dick Trickle's Win Over Rob Moroso

(Posted by cubs604)

Twenty-three years ago this week, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin driver Dick Trickle scored his only NASCAR Sprint Cup victory in the 1990 running of the Winston Open at Charlotte, the qualifier for what is now the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race.  The 48-year-old Trickle, driving the #66 TropArtic Pontiac for Cale Yarborough, led 28 of the race’s 134 laps and defeated runner-up Rob Moroso by just eight inches in a thrilling photo finish.  Trickle went on to finish 6th in what was to be his only All-Star appearance.

That qualifying race turned out to be a battle of two star-crossed Rookie of the Year winners.  The 21-year-old Moroso claimed the 1990 title posthumously following his death in a traffic accident that September.  And just today, Trickle, the top rookie in 1989, lost his life in an apparent suicide at the age of 71.

Before ESPN will almost certainly give Dick Trickle the same treatment they gave the Neil Bonnett tribute car at Talladega by making fun of his name and his winless Cup career, I'd like to point out that Trickle was one of the last few ties the sport had with its dirt track racing past.  To have lost him under such circumstances is nothing short of a tragedy that should be treated as such.

Trickle was an ageless wonder in NASCAR.  His first Cup start came at Daytona in 1970 the week Pete Hamilton pulled the upset in his #40 Plymouth Superbird.  Trickle never went full-time until 1989, when he won Rookie of the Year at age 47 and finished 15th in points.  He won a pair of Nationwide races past the age of 55, one each in 1997 and 1998, both coming at a time where Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was on the ascendancy. His final Cup start of his long career didn’t come until 2002, when he finished 42nd at Dover at age 60.

Trickle was an absolute terror on the short tracks, a two-time ASA champion with more wins than even he could count, which translated directly to his performances on NASCAR’s short tracks.  He won his lone pole position at Dover in 1990 and came home 3rd, a finish he matched at Bristol in 1997, giving Junie Donlavey’s car its best finish since the team’s lone win with Jody Ridley at Dover in 1981.  He was cut from the same cloth as fellow short-trackers J.D. McDuffie, Neil Castles, and Buddy Arrington.  The clip of Trickle smoking in his car at Talladega has gone viral on YouTube, harkening back to McDuffie’s practice of taping cigars to the dashboard of his cars on race day.

Like his runs for Donlavey and Yarborough, Trickle racked up many of his best performances driving for the sport’s oldest teams, including the Stavola Brothers, Butch Mock, and Bud Moore.  He finished 5th in the 1992 Daytona 500 in Mock’s unsponsored #75 Oldsmobile, and when he then returned to the Stavola team that gave him Rookie of the Year, he scored two more Top Fives at Atlanta and Bristol.  Even in the twilight of his career, Trickle drove in relief of fellow Cup veteran Dave Marcis, and in his 300th start pulled off a stunning 7th-place qualifying run at Rockingham in 2001.

But most of all, Trickle was a tremendous personality who had some of the most passionate fans in the sport.  They, like him, enjoyed seeing him compete, no matter how long the odds.  And if anything is to be gained from this horrible tragedy, let it be the stories of those fans, friends, and family who knew him as a man, a racer, and a legend.