8/29/1954: Ray Duhigg trails first NASCAR race in Kentucky

SOURCE: Getty Images, RacingOne, ISC Archives

On August 29, 1954, Ray Duhigg picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Grand National Series career during the 200-lap race at the Corbin Speedway when his #13 1953 Oldsmobile lost the transmission after 2 laps.  The finish came in Duhigg’s 52nd series start.

Duhigg, a popular short tracker from Toledo, Ohio, made his NASCAR debut on August 13, 1950 when he was just 20 years old.  In what would be the first of “Fireball” Roberts’ 17 series wins, Duhigg came home 23rd in a field of 27 driving a 1950 Plymouth.  Two months later, at the Winchester (Indiana) Speedway, Duhigg scored his first Top 5, a 5th, then ran as an owner-driver through the 1951 season.  From there, Duhigg made most of his starts in the Plymouths of Julian Petty and J.O. Goode.  He set a new career-best of 3rd with Petty in 1952, then matched it four more times in his career - twice more with Petty, and twice with Goode.  One of the 3rd-place runs, which came at North Wilkesboro, was perhaps Duhigg’s gutsiest performance.  Four months earlier, he’d broken his neck when his car tumbled violently at the treacherous Langhorne (Pennsylvania) Speedway.  The finish added to his remarkable consistency: heading into the 1954, he’d finished inside the Top Ten in 20 of his 42 starts, nearly one of every two.

~

Ernest Woods joined Grand National competition during the 1953 Southern 500, where his driver Emory Lewis finished 46th in a field of 59.  Woods expanded his team to two Oldsmobiles in 1954, signing Tim Flock, whose previous car owner Ted Chester closed his doors at the end of 1953.  The #88 Flock ran at the Daytona Beach-Road Course that February was the first NASCAR stock car equipped with a two-way radio.  Unfortunately, it also had illegally soldered carburetor screws.  Flock took the win, but was disqualified and classified last, handing the win to Lee Petty.  Disgusted, Flock left the sport for nearly a year, handing his ride to brother Bob before Buck Baker took over in April.  Baker scored two victories at the half-mile dirt tracks of Wilson (North Carolina) Speedway and Morristown (New Jersey) Speedway.

While Woods’ new #88 team was performing well, the #13 team struggled.  Woods released Emory Lewis in May and replaced him with Kentucky native Joel Million and rising star Jim Paschal.  Still, the team was without a win and had finished no better than 6th with Paschal at the Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds.  To make matters worse, Baker left the Woods team that summer and reunited with Bob Griffin, who had fielded cars for Baker from 1950 through the first part of the 1954 season.  Baker’s first race back with Griffin would be the inaugural race in Corbin, Kentucky.  For that race, Woods moved Paschal into Baker’s #88.  The #13 needed a driver.  Woods picked Ray Duhigg.

~

Heading into Corbin, Duhigg had made nine of the first 29 races of the 1954 season.  Twice he drove in place of Baker in Bob Griffin’s #87 Oldsmobile, but both times mechanical issues left him one spot short of a last-place finish.  His best runs once again came with J.O. Goode.  Duhigg racked-up two Top Fives and four Top Tens in Goode’s Plymouths, including a season-best 4th at the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Speedrome on July 11.  Both Goode and Duhigg had been off the track for more than a month when Duhigg was tabbed to drive Woods’ #13 at Corbin.

The Corbin race, held at a half-mile dirt track in south-east Kentucky, was the first and only Cup event held in the state until the Kentucky Speedway was added to the schedule in 2011.  While qualifying results for the race are as yet unknown, the pole went to Paschal in Woods’ #88.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be another rough day for the team.  Duhigg’s transmission failed after 2 laps while Paschal blew a gasket on Lap 29.

20th-place went to Jimmie Lewallen, who had also raced with Julian Petty and J.O. Goode, but this time drove for 1952 Lakewood (Georgia) Speedway winning car owner George Hutchens.  Behind Paschal in 18th was the Lincoln of Bub King, a native of Corbin, who that day chose his home track to make his 35th and final Grand National start  Rounding out the Bottom Five in 17th was Georgian owner-driver Gober Sosebee, who earlier that year at the Central City (Georgia) Speedway scored his second and final Grand National win.

Corbin was to be Duhigg’s only last-place finish.  He made just three more Grand National races, the last of which a career-best matching 3rd during the Daytona Beach-Road Course on February 27, 1955.  Tragically, just eight months later on October 9, Duhigg was killed in a crash during the MARC Racing Series (now ARCA) event at the Salem Speedway in Indiana.  He was 25.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was the first last-place finish for the #13 in a Grand National race since May 16, 1954, when Joel Million’s 1953 Oldsmobile, also owned by Ernest Woods, crashed after 22 circuits of the 200-lapper at the Martinsville Speedway.  It would not finish last again until June 29, 1957 when Peck Peckham’s 1956 Chevrolet lost the clutch on the opening lap of the darkness-shortened race at the Piedmont (North Carolina) Interstate Fairgrounds.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
21) #13-Ray Duhigg / 2 laps / transmission
20) #90-Jimmie Lewallen / 12 laps / fuel pump
19) #88-Jim Paschal / 28 laps / gasket
18) #10-Bub King / 34 laps / shocks
17) #51-Gober Sosebee / 43 laps / engine

CUP: Open Team Roundup - Daytona

SOURCE: Getty Images

QUALIFIED

#98 Premium Motorsports
Driver: Cole Whitt
Started 35th, Finished 11th

For the first time since Fontana in March, Cole Whitt and the #98 Premium Motorsports team finished ahead of all of his fellow Open teams.  The 11th-place run was also a career-best for Whitt in his 101st series start.  Whitt’s RTIC Coolers Toyota, with another new paint scheme, struggled in practice and qualifying, but raced well, never losing a lap and lurking in the middle of the lead pack.  It was a tremendous performance for both driver and team, bouncing back from the last-second spin at Talladega and the dropped cylinder last Sunday at Sonoma.

Whitt returns to the Kentucky Speedway this Saturday, where his career-best finish of 28th came in 2014.

#21 Wood Brothers Racing
Driver: Ryan Blaney
Started 12th, Finished 14th

Blaney had another Top Five car under him at Daytona, which ended up putting him in the wrong place at the wrong time.  On Lap 150, Blaney was running near the lower end of the track when Tony Stewart broke loose to his outside, crunching Blaney’s right-front fender.  The #21 made it back to pit road for repairs, then had to get on the binders once more after nudging Carl Edwards into a spin on Lap 155.  The Wood Brothers kept him on the lead lap, and the team managed to salvage a 14th-place finish, improving on their run in February’s 500.

Blaney scored his first XFINITY Series win at the track in 2013, followed it up with another last fall, but his fast Wood Brothers entry was sent home last summer when qualifying was rained out.  This Saturday, Blaney is expected to give the Wood Brothers their first-ever start at the 1.5-mile oval.

#35 Front Row Motorsports
Driver: David Gilliland
Started 28th, Finished 19th

Gilliland and the #35 entry returned to Sprint Cup for the first time since Talladega in May and once again proved to be one of the strongest dark horses.  After his practice time was disallowed on Friday, Gilliland put the car 28th on the grid, second only to Blaney among the Open teams.  He had about a 15th-place car through the early laps and, unlike Talladega, was able to avoid serious damage to his car.  He managed to squeak through both multi-car accidents by the closest of margins.  He ran the apron to get past the Big One on Lap 90, and only at the end was clipped into a spin by the wrecking Martin Truex, Jr.  He also ran the low line when Tony Stewart and Casey Mears’ wreck broke out in the spot.  12th in the final stages, Gilliland settled for 19th, just two spots shy of his Talladega run.

Gilliland and the #35 team are not expected to run this Saturday at Kentucky, but should be expected to return at Talladega this fall.

#55 Premium Motorsports
Driver: Reed Sorenson
Started 39th, Finished 22nd

Saturday, Reed Sorenson was not ousted by “plate-ringer” Michael Waltrip and instead made his first restrictor-plate start since his 2015 Daytona 500 run for Team XTREME Racing.  Sorenson ran a quiet race all evening, staying near the rear of the field and losing a lap in the middle stages.  The rash of late cautions gave the white #55 Toyota its lap back just in time for the green-white-checkered finish, which Sorenson rounded out with his best finish of the season and first on the lead lap.

Sorenson eyes his third-straight start at Kentucky this Saturday, where his best finish of 27th came in his 2014 track debut.  He finished 36th for Premium Motorsports there last year.

DID NOT QUALIFY

#30 The Motorsports Group
Driver: Josh Wise
Team Stats: 14 Starts, 3 DNQs

Josh Wise began the weekend strong, running 9th-fastest in Happy Hour, second among the five Open teams.  This ws more than enough to lock him into the field if qualifying were rained-out.  However, like Gilliland, Wise’s time was thrown out, leaving him 40th.  When qualifying went through anyway, Wise couldn’t replicate the same speed, and he anchored the charts by more than two full seconds, leaving The Motorsports Group 0-for-3 on the restrictor-plate tracks in 2016.  They are the team's only DNQs this season.

Wise’s best finish in four previous starts at Kentucky was a 29th for Phil Parsons Racing in 2014.  The next year, the track was the scene of his final start in Parsons’ #98 as it changed hands to Jay Robinson’s Premium Motorsports.  Wise finished last that night after an early crash (LINK).  The Motorsports Group will look to make its first start on the 1.5-mile oval.  Last year, rain washing out qualifying proved to be bad luck as driver Travis Kvapil was sent home.  The team didn’t attempt another race until Bristol, six weeks later.

DID NOT ENTER

#26 BK Racing
#40 Hillman Racing
#59 Leavine Family / Circle Sport Racing
#93 BK Racing

None of the other part-time Open teams attempted the race in Daytona.  As of this writing, only the #93 BK Racing entry is slated for any additional starts in 2016.

CUP: Chris Buescher edges Harvick for first career NASCAR last-place finish

SOURCE: Brian Lawdermilk, Getty Images

Chris Buescher picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career in Saturday’s Coke Zero 400 at the Daytona International Speedway when his #34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford was involved in a grinding 22-car crash after 89 of 161 laps.  The finish came in Buescher’s 23rd series start.

Buescher, the defending XFINITY Series Champion, is competing in his first full Sprint Cup Series season, where he’s matched against fellow rookies Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Brian Scott, and Jeffrey Earnhardt.  Buescher rose to prominence in the ARCA Racing Series, winning just his ninth series start at Toledo in 2010 when he was only 17.  Buescher and the Roulo Brothers Racing team went on to claim the series title in 2012, at which point he was also making XFINITY Series starts for Roush-Fenway Racing.  Buescher took home his first NASCAR victory during a thrilling finish at Mid-Ohio in 2014, then racked up another two wins and 20 Top Tens in 33 starts on his way to the 2015 XFINITY title.

Early in the 2015 season, Front Row Motorsports had planned to run the full Sprint Cup schedule with returning driver David Ragan.  However, when Brian Vickers’ blood clot issue recurred, Ragan stepped in to relief drive for Michael Waltrip Racing, leaving Front Row’s #34 open.  Following a handful of starts by Joe Nemechek and Brett Moffitt, Buescher was tabbed to drive at Fontana.  The youngster rewarded the team with a strong 20th-place finish.  Buescher and Moffitt shared the #34 for the rest of the year with Moffitt claiming Rookie of the Year, but Buescher was tabbed to drive full-time in 2016.

Buescher came into Saturday’s race just 33rd in points.  While he improved his career-best finish with an 18th at Dover, he has encountered the same struggles traditionally faced by Cup rookies.  His biggest struggles came on the restrictor-plate tracks.  He crashed hard with Matt DiBenedetto near the halfway point of the Daytona 500, then tumbled wildly down the backstretch at Talladega.  When the series returned to Daytona, NBC reported Buescher hoped simply to finish the race on the lead lap, something he’d done only three times this season.

For the July 4th weekend, Buescher’s sponsor Love’s Travel Stops brought back its camouflaged paint scheme with a gold racing stripe down the middle.  David Gilliland put these same colors on the pole for the 400 in 2014.  Buescher had a fast car as well, putting up the 6th-fastest time in Happy Hour before settling for 25th in qualifying.  The only driver to miss the race was Josh Wise, whose #30 The Motorsports Group entry has yet to make a restrictor-plate start in 2016.

Starting 40th on Saturday was Regan Smith.  The mechanical gremlins which saddled his Tommy Baldwin-prepared Chevrolet during practice at Sonoma returned for qualifying at Daytona: the team lost an engine and Smith failed to complete a lap.  The engine change incurred a redundant penalty, sending Smith’s #7 Golden Corral Chevrolet to the rear of a field he already trailed.  By the end of Lap 1, Smith moved past 39th-place starter Reed Sorenson, whose #55 RoyalTeakFurniture.com Toyota for Premium Motorsports was also kept in the rear for unapproved adjusments.  By Lap 2, Sorenson moved up as well, giving the spot to Kevin Harvick.

Harvick, who had yet to finish last in a single NASCAR points race across the series’ top three divisions, held onto the spot for 17 laps, apparently trying to avoid the kind of wreck that eliminated him at Talladega.  He held the position until Lap 19, when Landon Cassill’s #38 Taco Bell Ford, also from Front Row, slowed off Turn 4.  Cassill reported that the car had shut down, and he missed the entrance to pit road.  Fortunately, NASCAR threw its scheduled competition caution at the same moment, giving Cassill the Lucky Dog as he was pushed to pit road.  Unfortunately, the #38 couldn’t benefit - he pulled onto pit road for a new battery, then when that didn’t work, was pushed to the garage.  Still, the Front Row team didn’t give up, checking the wiring and eventually replacing the master switch.  On Lap 61, Cassill returned to the track 42 laps behind.  A few laps later, with all 40 starters still running, the team’s persistence paid off.

Chris Buescher had one of his best runs of the season going.  He ran inside the Top 5 during the first part of the race and was still in contention on Lap 90.  Unfortunately, trouble broke out in front of him.  Contact between teammates Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson sent McMurray into the path of Jimmie Johnson, triggering a 22-car wreck.  Buescher, who was closing on the lead pack some distance back, sped into the middle of the wreck.  The hole in front of Buescher closed.  Pinched between the cars of Greg Biffle and Regan Smith in the middle lane, Buescher piled in, leaving his #34 wrecked on the apron.  Fortunately, he and the others involved walked away unharmed.

As the dust settled, Cassill was still in 40th, still more than 40 laps behind the leaders.  The rest of the Bottom Five was filled with the final few starters involved in the accident, ranked by their position on the previous lap: 39th went to Kasey Kahne, who would fall to last for the first time in 2016 if Cassill remained on the track.  Behind Kahne on the same lap were Buescher in 38th, Matt DiBenedetto in 37th, and Kevin Harvick in 36th.  Harvick was the first of those involved the wreck to be listed as “out” on Lap 105, possibly due to the roof damage incurred by his contact with Brian Scott’s #44 Ford.  If Buescher, DiBenedetto, and Kahne returned to the track for one more lap while Cassill finished, this would give Harvick his first NASCAR last-place finish.  But on Lap 110, Buescher’s 38th-place car was also listed as “out,” meaning he would finish behind Harvick.

Kahne’s crew was determined to get him back out there to stay in touch with the Chase bubble.  He returned to the track on Lap 130, 40 laps down, and both he and DiBenedetto immediately vaulted past Buescher, Harvick, and others.  Kahne completed his 91st lap on the 131st circuit, vaulting him up the standings and dropping Buescher and Harvick to 39th and 38th, respectively.  At that moment, Cassill was just one lap behind the pair, so on Lap 132, Buescher dropped to 40th for the final last-place finish of the day.  39th-place Harvick, on the same lap as Buescher, had come closer than ever before to finishing last.  He remains perfect through 1,009 combined Cup, XFINITY, and Truck Series races.

Rounding out the Bottom Five behind Buescher and Harvick were Regan Smith, Brian Scott, and Paul Menard.  They, along with 36th-place Jimmie Johnson, did not complete another lap after the accident.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first last-place finish for the #34 in a Cup Series race since October 27, 2013, when David Ragan’s Taco Bell Ford lost an engine after 109 laps, and first at this track since Ragan’s first-lap crash in the 2012 Daytona 500.  It’s also the first last-place run for Front Row Motorsports in just over a year, dating back to June 28, 2015 when David Gilliland’s #38 Love’s Travel Stops Ford crashed out after 20 laps of the Toyota / Save Mart 350.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #34-Chris Buescher / 89 laps / crash
39) #4-Kevin Harvick / 89 laps / crash / led 1 lap
38) #7-Regan Smith / 89 laps / crash / led 1 lap
37) #44-Brian Scott / 89 laps / crash
36) #27-Paul Menard / 89 laps / crash

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Matt DiBenedetto, Reed Sorenson (3)
2nd) Josh Wise (2)
3rd) Aric Almirola, Clint Bowyer, Chris Buescher, Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Kyle Larson, Paul Menard, Ryan Newman, Cole Whitt (1)

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Premium Motorsports (4)
2nd) BK Racing (3)
3rd) Richard Childress Racing, The Motorsports Group (2)
4th) Chip Ganassi Racing, Front Row Motorsports, Hendrick Motorsports, HScott Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports (1)

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (11)
2nd) Toyota (4)
3rd) Ford (2)

XFINITY: B.J. McLeod out early as Jeff Green scores first top-ten finish since 2005

SOURCE: NASCAR

B.J. McLeod picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR XFINITY Series career in Friday’s Subway Firecracker 250 at the Daytona International Speedway when his #78 Safecraft Safety Equipment / MOMO Ford lost the engine after 1 of the race’s 103 laps.  The finish came in McLeod’s 26th series start.

McLeod, himself a Florida resident, got his start running ATVs and go-karts.  As a teen, he developed into one of the Southeast’s most formidable short track drivers with over 100 super late model wins.  He honed his skills in the American Speed Association (ASA), Hooters Pro Cup (now CARS X-1R Pro Cup), and the ARCA Racing Series on his way to NASCAR.

McLeod made his NASCAR debut in the Truck Series in 2010, finishing 17th for Germain Racing.  For the next four seasons, he earned his stripes in the series, running part-time for six different teams including RSS Racing and SS-Green Light Racing.  He also developed his own race team, B.J. McLeod Motorsports, Inc., which since 2011 has developed its own NASCAR program in addition to supporting new talents in late model and K&N Pro Series East competition.  Among McLeod’s alumni are Matt Tifft and Scott Heckert.  In 2015, McLeod’s team partnered with Tommy Regan, McLeod himself running ten races in the #45 Tilted Kilt Chevrolet.

2015 also saw McLeod’s XFINITY Series debut at Iowa, where he finished 36th for Rick Ware Racing.  As in the Truck Series, McLeod stayed true to his journeyman roots, driving for three other teams and earning a season-best 25th at Loudon driving for SS-Green Light.  Loudon was also the scene of McLeod’s Cup Series debut, where he finished 34th in Joe Falk’s #33 Little Joe’s Autos Chevrolet.

This year, McLeod took his biggest step yet, running two full-time cars in the XFINITY Series.  McLeod would drive his own car, a #78 Ford, while a rotating series of drivers would run his team car #99.  While the #99 has made just one start in five attempts - a 38th by Todd Peck at Atlanta - and hasn’t been entered since withdrawing from Fontana, McLeod has qualified for every race this season.  He returned to Daytona last week 21st in points, coming off his second career-best finish of 19th this season.

McLeod came to Daytona with a radical new paint scheme, his black-and-green colors replaced by a brilliant blue and white, featuring new sponsorship from Safecraft Safety Equpment, makers of fire extinguishers, and Italian racing performance company MOMO.  The car looked good, but there was trouble under the hood.  Unable to make it out during Thursday’s lone practice session, McLeod didn’t find out until his qualifying lap that the engine sounded flat.  He put up a lap of just 170.232mph - more than one second slower than the next-slowest car - and had to rely on Owner Points to secure the 40th and final starting spot.  Still, his strong season allowed him to make the race while Carl Long, Derrike Cope, and Mike Harmon were sent home.  McLeod’s crew changed the battery and hoped for the best on race day.

When the green flag flew, however, there was still something wrong with McLeod’s engine.  By the backstretch, he’d lost touch with the pack and was falling further behind.  He pulled onto pit road the next time by, then to the garage area - the motor had blown.

The silver lining to McLeod’s short day was that he avoided all the multi-car accidents that filled the Bottom Five.  39th-place Ray Black, Jr.’s #07 ScubaLife / CDA.edu Chevrolet was destroyed in a hard crash on Lap 9 when he tangled with 38th-place finisher Alex Guenette in Obaika’s #97 Vroom! Brands Chevrolet and three other cars.  37th went to Talladega last-placer Justin Marks, whose #42 Katerra Chevrolet suffered heavy nose damage in the Lap 15 tangle that ripped the driver’s side sheet metal off the side of Joe Nemechek’s 36th-place finishing #87 Fleetwing Toyota., both among the 14 drivers involved.  The early attrition left Morgan Shepherd 35th, tying his best finish of the year at Pocono.

Rick Ware Racing enjoyed one of its best NASCAR performances with teammates Ryan Ellis and all-time last-place leader Jeff Green.  Ellis, who brought sponsor ScienceLogic to Ware’s #15 Chevrolet, overcame two late incidents on the backstretch and heat exhaustion to finish a career-best 15th.  Jeff Green, who returned to Ware’s #17 for the first time since the season opener, finished a surprising 7th - his first top-ten finish since May 13, 2005 at Richmond.  This wasn’t the first time the two drivers have crossed paths.  Just nine months ago at Darlington, it was Ellis who ended Green’s record-setting streak of eight consecutive last-place finishes.  Friday also marked the first time Ford finished last in an XFINITY Series race since that day.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first last-place finish for the #78 in an XFINITY Series race since September 11, 2009, when Kevin Lepage’s unsponsored Derrike Cope, Inc. Dodge was involved in a three-car accident on the opening lap of the Virginia College Savings 250 at Richmond.
*This was also the first time in more than a year that the last-place finisher of an XFINITY race fell out because of engine trouble.  The most recent time came on April 10, 2015, when Mike Harmon’s unsponsored #74 Mike Harmon Racing Dodge exited the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at Texas after 2 laps.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #78-B.J. McLeod / 1 lap / engine
39) #07-Ray Black, Jr. / 8 laps / crash
38) #97-Alex Guenette / 9 laps / crash
37) #42-Justin Marks / 14 laps / crash
36) #87-Joe Nemechek / 14 laps / crash

2016 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Matt DiBenedetto (5)
2nd) Jeff Green (4)
3rd) Josh Wise (2)
4th) Justin Marks, B.J. McLeod, Ryan Preece, Josh Reaume (1)

2016 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) TriStar Motorsports (9)
2nd) RSS Racing (3)
3rd) B.J. McLeod Motorsports, Inc., Chip Ganassi Racing, JD Motorsports (1)

2016 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Toyota (9)
2nd) Chevrolet (5)
3rd) Ford (1)

CUP: The road to Stewart vs. Hamlin at Sonoma

I don’t usually write about who wins a race - particularly when it’s one of the sport’s top drivers - but after chewing over Tony Stewart’s victory over Denny Hamlin in Sunday’s Toyota / Save Mart 350, I’m compelled to make an exception.  Looking back from my work in Sonoma, I can’t help but notice how both drivers figured prominently throughout the weekend, and how significant the finish was in the context of the track’s history.

The Thursday before the race, Hamlin came to Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco for the annual media luncheon put on by the Sonoma Raceway.  Joining him on the panel were K&N Pro Series West point leader Todd Gilliland, David’s 16-year-old son, and Larry McReynolds, who would film FOX’s pre-race segment with Hamlin right after.  Hamlin was there to reveal which of his sponsor’s three possible “FedEx Cares” paint schemes would run that Sunday.  FedEx chose to get fancy, having those in attendance witness the reveal in “virtual reality” by means of a 360-degree YouTube video.  Everyone had difficulty assembling FedEx’s cardboard screen viewers - everyone, that is, except Gilliland - and Hamlin’s narration in the video was complemented with the driver himself giving technical support from the podium.

During the question-and-answer period, Hamlin was asked about preparing for his first road course race of the season:

“It’s difficult for sure, I mean, for some of us, this is a lot different than any technique that we grew up racing.  You know, most of the guys who grew up racing dirt or asphalt, they grew up racing ovals.  Not a whole lot of us did road course racing, so I think it’s a lot of fun, especially being part of the - having that win already, it gives us a chance to go out there and have some fun and kind of race for broke for a race win.  And, for me, learn what it takes to get better at these road courses.  That would be important.”

Hamlin was no stranger to victory lane on the road courses.  His first XFINITY Series win came on Mexico City’s demanding Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez course in 2006.  But, even with a Daytona 500 win and his Joe Gibbs Racing team stronger than ever, he certainly wasn’t a favorite for the win on Sunday.  After his previous career-best of 5th in 2009, he came into the 2010 running off two consecutive victories at Pocono and Michigan, primed to make it three.  But the #11 hit everything but the pace car that day, his Toyota so damaged that the hood flew up entering Turn 1.  He’d finished no better than 18th at the track since.

The next day, Tony Stewart walked into victory lane at the Sonoma Raceway.  His #14 was just 18th-fastest in first practice, and now he had to sit in the hot sun in front of a large group of media and fans, his voice drowned out by K&N Pro Series West practice.  But he didn’t seem to mind.  After all, he and fellow two-time winner Ernie Irvan were being inducted into the track’s Wall of Fame.  Each were awarded a large bottle of local wine.  As fans cheered from along the rail of the main grandstands and around victory lane, Stewart was asked about his chances for victory on Sunday:

“I’ll answer that in a second, but I do want to say I’m very appreciative of everybody at Sonoma.  This, from the first day I came out here, this was always been one of my favorite racetracks, always when the schedule comes out I circle it as one that I look forward to, so thank you.  This is a great honor, I can’t say thank you enough for this.  When I got up this morning, I got ready to leave the hotel, it’s already starting to hit that this is my last weekend down here as a driver, and it’s not feeling as good as I feel.  As far as the car, we got one more practice to go and if I can’t get it better than it is, I’m gonna drink that entire bottle of wine tonight. . .We’ll figure it out.  We’ll get it better than it is.  We were tenth fastest in the first practice, I’m pretty proud of that, so I think we’ll keep at it, see if we can get it better this second session.”

After it was over, most everyone there swarmed around Stewart.  It wasn’t hard at all talking to Irvan, trying to learn “the words I can’t say” the moment he was black-flagged for jumping the start in 1992.  Irvan’s “worst to first” run is all the more remarkable because of its rarity.  It’s much more typical for a Cinderella story at the Sonoma Raceway to end with a broken glass slipper.  With three laps to go in 1991, Tommy Kendall was in position to become NASCAR’s first road ringer to win since Mark Donohue, but cut a left-front tire.  With two to go in 2002, Jerry Nadeau, himself a ringer of sorts, had the race won for Petty Enterprises when the rear gear broke in Turn 11.  Stewart’s two previous Sonoma wins also came at the expense of underdogs denied.  In 2001, he slipped past Robby Gordon, who moments earlier had managed to muscle Jim Smith’s slow #7 NationsRent Ford past Jeff Gordon for the lead.  Four years later, Ricky Rudd was leading for the Wood Brothers, but his tires were too worn to prevent Stewart’s pass with 12 to go, even as Stewart fought to hold his fractured transmission in gear.

These thoughts weren’t far from my mind during Sunday’s final laps.  There were simply too many laps for something to happen, and too many fast cars behind Stewart to take advantage.  When Hamlin made his move in Turn 7 on the final lap, it wasn’t surprising that it had happened, but rather how long it had taken.  Other than the 1991 race - and only because Ricky Rudd was penalized five seconds for spinning Davey Allison from the lead with two laps to go - there had never been a last-lap pass for the win in the history of the event.  There was also a strange poetry to the moment Hamlin got by - the “Budweiser Bottleneck,” as Turn 7 was known when it debuted in 2001, was inaugurated by Stewart’s winning pass on Robby when he ran for Gibbs.

But Hamlin had struggled in Turn 11.  He swung wide in the corner with two laps to go.  There was also word of oil on the track, perhaps from the #30 of Josh Wise, which retired with engine failure in the final ten laps.  Whatever it was, it’s clear Hamlin didn’t move over deliberately, especially with five of his favorite charities on the car.  Instead, the Sonoma Raceway handed down another late misfortune, just as it has in the past and will in the future.