Entry List Storylines: Richmond

PHOTO: @MRNRadio

CUP SERIES
Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond

For the first time in three races, and for the 16th time in 26 races, there will be a short field for this Saturday’s Cup race as 39 drivers will compete in the final event of the “regular season.”  Missing from Darlington is Motorsports Business Management, whose team owner Carl Long made his first Cup start since Kansas.  I caught up with Long on pit road just before Sunday’s opening ceremonies:

BEARD: “Your first Southern 500 since 2005, how do you feel?”
LONG: “Fat (laughs).  But I think after the race, there’ll be like a bucket of grease in there like you’re frying bacon when I get through, so it’ll all be good (laughs).”
BEARD: “What’s the plan out there, find a hole out there and ride it out, see how it goes?”
LONG: “Yup, just try to stay out of trouble and not be involved in anyone else’s trouble, and be there at the checkered.”

Long made it well into Sunday’s race, but after two “Darlington Stripes,” he handed over the wheel to teammate Timmy Hill, who ran the final 130 laps.  The effort yielded a 33rd-place finish, 17 laps down, improving on Long’s aforementioned 2005 Southern 500, where he turned just 69 laps and finished 42nd.

Last week saw Rick Ware Racing make last-minute changes to their “Days of Thunder” throwback, turning their #51 Bubba Burger Chevrolet into a means of raising awareness for the victims of Hurricane Harvey.  Unfortunately, the night itself was one to forget as the car lacked speed in the opening stages, then was wrecked on Lap 156 with Matt DiBenedetto and A.J. Allmendinger.  The Ware team is now making their second attempt to attract a sponsor to run a paint scheme representing the ECU Pirates.  As of this writing, the driver and sponsor are to be announced.

BK Racing has once again swapped their driver lineup, moving Gray Gaulding back to the #23 for the first time since Pocono in June and Corey LaJoie to the #83 for the first time since the Bristol night race.  Gaulding carries returning sponsorship from Sweet Frog while LaJoie welcomes Safeway Supermarkets.  Both drivers had a rough night in their first Darlington starts.  Gaulding spun and wrecked on Lap 197, leaving him with severe rear end damage that caused his car to spark and struggle at the back.  When he finally pulled off the track, a water pipe above his garage stall ruptured, drenching his Toyota.  LaJoie caught the wall several times, the last of which in the dramatic final two laps.  With the leaders closing, LaJoie slowed suddenly in Turn 4, then cut across both lanes of traffic in a hard turn to the left to make sure he got on pit road.

Premium Motorsports has also swapped their driver lineup with Derrike Cope and sponsor StarCom Fiber moving to the #15 Toyota while Reed Sorenson drives the #55 Low T Centers Chevrolet.  Sorenson’s tribute to Bud Moore made just 104 laps last Sunday before the clutch failed, requiring his car to be pushed back to the garage in 39th.  Cope fared better, though his car was a handful in Turns 3 and 4 for much of the night, and finished 32nd – his best Cup finish at Darlington since 2004.  Cope will be making his first Richmond start since 2006, when he parked Raynard McGlynn’s #74 Dodge for a last-place finish that spring, while Sorenson ran 33rd this past April.

At the front of the field, eyes will certainly be watching Chase Elliott, Matt Kenseth, and Jamie McMurray, who hold the three winless positions in the Chase standings, as well as Joey Logano, Erik Jones, and Clint Bowyer as they – and others – try to win their way into the Chase.  These three on the outside all have adversity to overcome, both literally and statistically.  Logano took the checkers here in April, only to have it encumbered due to an illegal rear end (similar to Denny Hamlin’s penalty for Sunday’s race).  Jones crashed out early in that race, his first of two last-place finishes this year, while Richmond was the scene of both Bowyer’s first last-place run in Cup in 2014 and his controversial spin in 2013.

XFINITY SERIES
Virginia 529 College Savings 250 at Richmond

41 drivers are entered to attempt this Friday’s XFINITY Series race.  The preliminary list showed 42, but GMS Racing has since withdrawn the #96 Chevrolet for Ben Kennedy, one week after Kennedy earned a 12th-place finish, his best for that team.

Following a DNQ in his first series attempt at Iowa, Bobby Dale Earnhardt will make his series debut in Motorsports Business Management's #40 Chevrolet. Joining him in the MBM stable will be Timmy Hill, who races in place of Carl Long in the #13 Dodge.

Like both Premium Motorsports and BK Racing on the Cup side, B.J. McLeod’s XFINITY team has also swapped its driver lineup.  Tommy Joe Martins, who ran well early at Darlington before a tire change error by the crew, will drive the flagship #8 Chevrolet for the first time this season.  It will be Martins’ first Richmond start since April 25, 2014, when he ran 36th in his own equipment.  Martins’ teammate in the #78 will be John Graham, who finished 30th in his return to the series at Road America.  Graham has two Richmond starts in the series – a 29th for MacDonald Motorsports in 2004, and a 41st for Brewco in 2007.

Other than his runner-up finish at Mid-Ohio, Daniel Hemric’s best finish of 2017 came here in the spring, where he won his first career pole, led a season-high 26 laps, and finished 3rd.  Along with Justin Allgaier, who led 157 of 254 laps that day only to finish 2nd, will be ones to watch among the series regulars.

Kyle Larson, who won the XFINITY race this past spring, is not entered.  Instead, the Cup Series interlopers this week are Paul Menard (#2 Richmond / Menards Chevrolet), Ty Dillon (#3 Rheem Chevrolet), Reed Sorenson (#15 teamjdmotorsports.com Chevrolet, a likely “start-and-park” effort), Kyle Busch (#18 NOS Energy Drink Toyota), Brad Keselowski (#22 Fitzgerald Glider Kits Ford), and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (#88 Degree Deoderant Chevrolet).  Junior makes just his second XFINITY start of the season, following a 13th-place run last month at Bristol.

TRUCK SERIES
Next Race: Chicagoland 225 at Chicagoland
September 15, 2017

2/21/82: Gary Balough and RahMoc Enterprises finish last at Richmond in the shadow of “Black Thursday”

PHOTO: ESPN Classic

On February 21, 1982, Gary Balough picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Winston Cup career in the Richmond 400 at the Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway when his #75 Sanyo Buick was involved in a multi-car accident, ending his race after 42 of 250 laps.  The finish came in Balough’s 16th series start.

The driver they called “Hot Shoe” would come to be known for two things: his domination as a dirt racer and the prison sentence that curtailed his NASCAR career.  It’s interesting to note that Balough didn’t get his start on the dirt, but on the paved Haileah Speedway in Florida.  In 1962, when he was only 14, Balough won in his first-ever start, then scored another 36 by the end of the year.  Balough moved to Late Models at 16, and in 1968 won the prestigious Florida’s Governor’s Cup 200.

It was Balough’s mentor and NASCAR legend “Tiger” Tom Pistone who first exposed the youngster to dirt track racing by sending him to Pennsylvania to shake down a dirt chassis.  An eager student, Balough learned from racers across the state, including Spud Murphy, who fielded his first cars on clay.

Balough was cocky and brash, but undeniably gifted behind the wheel, and despite his asphalt background, showed the ability to run smooth laps and save his tires on the tough dirt bullrings.  So gifted, in fact, that in 1976, he won the first of three consecutive runnings of the iconic Syracuse 200 at the New York State Fairgrounds.  Driving car #112, Balough would dominate Super DIRT Week a fourth time in 1980, running the iconic ground-effect-laden “Batmobile,” a heavily-modified Lincoln chassis designed by Kenny Weld.

By this point in his career, had already made his NASCAR debut in no less than the famous 1979 Daytona 500.  Driving for fellow Florida native Billie Harvey, Balough put Billie Harvey’s #87 Fast Lane Ltd. Oldsmobile 27th on the 41-car grid, but ended up 35th when he was involved in the early accident that eliminated David Pearson.  Balough finished 16th in his return to Daytona that July, 35th at Pocono, then in 1980 qualified 8th at Atlanta before a wreck left him 39th.  But, coming into 1981, as NASCAR downsized its stock cars to shorter-wheelbase models, Balough was without a Cup ride in 1981.  He’d soon find one with a young team called RahMoc Enterprises.

Butch Mock and engine builder Bob Rahilly co-founded RahMoc Enterprises in 1978 as a part-time team in the Cup Series.  The team campaigned car #75 from the very start on October 8, 1978, when Mock himself raced his way from last on the grid at Charlotte to finish 26th in a field of 40.  Over the next three seasons, Mock would hand over the wheel to a number of different drivers who would go on to have success in NASCAR, including Chuck Bown, Kyle Petty, and Harry Gant, as well as Lennie Pond, who edged Darrell Waltrip for Rookie of the Year in 1973, and Joe Millikan, who lost rookie honors to Dale Earnhardt in 1979.  A few weeks after Millikan was released following the 1981 World 600 at Charlotte, Tim Richmond made a lone start for RahMoc at Nashville, the same race where Mark Martin earned his first pole.  Richmond finished 12th, but the team had still yet to score its first Cup win.  The team’s best finish at that point were three 7th-place finishes – one by Gant, and two by Millikan.  And so, for the next round at Pocono on July 26, the team decided to put a RahMoc engine under Gary Balough.

Carrying sponsorship from Ferrailuolo & Sons Excavating, whose owners Tony and Ronnie Ferraiuolo fielded dirt cars for Balough in 1975, Balough started 15th and matched Richmond’s 12th-place finish – a new career-best for the driver.  He finished out the 1981 season with RahMoc, earning his first Top 10 at Richmond in September.  The driver also proved to be a solid qualifier that year, only once starting worse than 22nd on the grid, including the 4th-fastest speed at Dover and 3rd at Michigan.  On October 10, he won a NASCAR Late Model Sportsman race at Charlotte, beating Mark Martin, Ricky Rudd, Darrell Waltrip, and Sam Ard with a Bob Rahilly engine.

Balough remained with RahMoc into 1982, when the team entered him in both the Daytona 500 and the weekend’s series debut of the NASCAR Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series (now the XFINITY Series).  Again, Balough impressed, charging from 33rd to 4th in the Saturday race (trailing Dale Earnhardt, Jody Ridley, and Sam Ard), then going from 31st to 11th in “The Great American Race.”  By this time, Balough had also signed with Harry Ranier to drive the #28 Pontiac that had gone to Benny Parsons, that year’s polesitter of the 500, with Waddell Wilson as crew chief and Robert Yates engines under the hood.

But five days after the 500, as crews headed to the next round in Richmond, disaster struck.  On February 19, Balough was indicted along with 65 others in a $300 million marijuana and cocaine smuggling ring that had operated since 1976.  Among the claims were that the drivers and mechanics worked on the fast powerboats which were used to bring drugs from the Bahamas, and that both NASCAR cars and haulers had been used to transport them into the Carolinas.  The complaint alleged that at least some of the drugs had been ferried through Balough’s home town of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Jim Hunter, the NASCAR Spokesman at the time, commented that Balough and William Joseph Harvey, another driver from the 500 implicated by the FBI, “are not prominent drivers. They are here, I think, because they like it but not to make their living at it.”  Chris Economaki, who dubbed the announcement “Black Thursday,” would later write, “The unfortunate headlines of last week concerning a few racing insiders caught up in a drug investigation is another slap in the face for our sport. Unlike the ‘moonshiners’ of the ’30s and ’40s who broke an unpopular law, drugs, particularly the hard ones, are a cancer on the American scene. Papers that wouldn’t carry a race result if the mayor of their city won at Indy, bannered the racing connection of the drug story.”

“I’d gotten into situations in the late ‘70s that I shouldn’t have been around,” said Balough in 2009. “To get enough funding, because there weren’t any major corporations around then, we made some mistakes.”

Balough was released from a Miami jail on a $100,000 bond in time to join the RahMoc team at Richmond for the second race of the season.  Under this looming cloud of controversy, the driver performed well in qualifying, earning 11th on the 32-car grid.  During the final pace lap, ESPN’s Larry Nuber made brief mention of Balough as “racing moved from the sports page to the front page” as “one of the most famous and concurrently infamous short track drivers Gary Balough, was indicted in an alleged Miami-based drug-smuggling ring, but he’s here this week and ready to go racing.”

Starting last in the field was 32-year-old owner-driver Jimmy Means, embarking on his seventh season on the circuit, in the #52 Broadway Motors Chevrolet.  At the end of Lap 1, the spot fell to Tommy Gale, who was driving Elmo Langley’s #64 Sunny King Ford.  Just as Gale worked his way through Turns 1 and 2, he saw trouble up front as Balough spun his powder blue #75 onto the apron.  Balough regained control without hitting anything, and filed in at the back of the pack.  Lap 3 saw Harry Gant drive down pit road in his #33 7-Eleven / Skoal Bandit Buick, but didn’t make a stop and rejoined the tail end of the field next to Tommy Gale.  Gant would be held a lap under the second caution of the afternoon, then made an unscheduled stop which likely dropped him to last.

Balough’s final bid for last came on Lap 36, when he tangled with open-wheel star Tom Sneva’s #37 Simoniz Buick in Turn 3.  Both cars managed to keep rolling under the yellow, but each had noticeable damage to the front valence.  Balough’s car had the left-front fender caved-in on the tire, causing the #75 to trail smoke as it limped back around the track.  Irritated, he then rear-ended Sneva’s car down the backstretch, then sped past the leaders to get to pit road.  Balough came back out on track, but was quickly black-flagged for passing leader Darrell Waltrip in the pits, costing him a lap and dropping him into contention for last with Gant.  It’s unlikely Balough returned to the track after that, as he was credited with just 42 laps complete, and the race restarted after his wreck on Lap 42.  Sneva’s car fell out soon after with rear end trouble, followed by Gant, whose earlier issues were apparently due to engine trouble.  Rounding out the Bottom Five were owner-drivers D.K. Ulrich in his #6 Buick and Vermont native Joe Fields in his #92 Richmond Printing Buick.  The win would go to Dave Marcis, his first since 1976 and the fifth and final of his long Cup career.

Balough remained with RahMoc for another three races, including Atlanta, where he matched the team’s best finish with another 7th-place run, but was released after Rockingham and replaced by Joe Ruttman.  It was then that Balough entered the darkest period of his career.  From 1982 through 2010, Balough would spend more than 45 months in prison, preventing him from getting back into racing full-time.  He won the 1986 title in NASCAR’s All Pro Super Series, scoring 14 wins in 22 races, and courted Domino’s Pizza for a 25-race, $750,000 sponsorship deal which ended up falling through.  He made three more Busch Series starts in 1990, another three in Cup for Jim Rosenblum in 1991 and 1992, and was there for the start of the Truck Series in 1994 and 1995, but didn’t find the success of a decade earlier.

During this same period, RahMoc Enterprises finally found victory lane.  On May 29, 1983, during the World 600 at Charlotte, Neil Bonnett led 69 laps, including the final 53, and beat Richard Petty for the win by eight-tenths of a second.  By the late 1980s, Bonnett had scored four wins for RahMoc, the last of which coming in the final race at Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway in 1988 before the track was re-configured into today’s Richmond Raceway.  Though no other driver won for RahMoc, the team continued to show flashes of brilliance into the early 1990s.  The team’s final two of their 36 top-five finishes both came in the Daytona 500, where Joe Ruttman ran 3rd in 1991 and Dick Trickle, without a sponsor, finished 5th in 1992.

Between the 1992 and 1993 seasons, Butch Mock left RahMoc Enterprises to start his own team, Butch Mock Motorsports.  Mock would continue to campaign the #75 for the rest of the decade, but in 209 Cup starts would finish no better than a 3rd by Todd Bodine at Atlanta in 1994.  In late 1999, Mock sold the team to Darwin Oordt, who presided over the renamed and short-lived Galaxy Motorsports in 2000.  Meanwhile, Bob Rahilly and his brother Dick have kept the RahMoc name alive with RahMoc Racing Engines.  The power plants built by the Rahilly brothers still can be heard roaring around the confines of Bowman Gray Stadium.

As for Balough, his prison days are well behind him, and he still resides in Florida.  Like fellow dirt tracker Jimmy Horton, he’s kept ties with his clay oval roots, including a return to Syracuse.  In 2015, he was inducted to the New England Modified Hall of Fame, where his 1980 “Batmobile” is on display.  He currently operates his own team, Gary Balough Racing, where he acts as driving coach and aero and chassis setup.  His Facebook page can be found at this link.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*Balough’s last-place finish was the first for RahMoc Enterprises.  The team’s #75 wouldn’t finish last at Richmond again until after Butch Mock started his own team.  On June 6, 1998, Rick Mast lost the engine on his #75 Remington Arms Ford after 113 laps of the Pontiac Excitement 400.  It proved to be Mock’s 13th and final last-place finish as the team’s co-owner, then sole owner.
*This marked the first last-place finish for car #75 in a Cup Series race since September 15, 1974, when Johnny Barnes’ Hawks Enterprises 1972 Chevrolet lost an engine on the opening lap of the Delaware 500 at Dover.
*This was also the first last-place finish for car #75 in a Cup race at Richmond since June 5, 1960, when John Dodd, Jr.’s 1960 Ford lost an engine after 37 laps of the Richmond 200.  Since Richmond wasn’t paved at the time, Dodd’s finish was the #75’s most recent last-place finish in a NASCAR dirt track race until Caleb Holman’s run at Eldora this past July.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
32) #75-Gary Balough / 42 laps / crash
31) #37-Tom Sneva / 94 laps / rear end
30) #33-Harry Gant / 138 laps / engine
29) #6-D.K. Ulrich / 169 laps / engine
28) #92-Joe Fields / 190 laps / running

SOURCES
*Autoweek Staff. “Special report: Racers who have run afoul of the law,” Autoweek, April 27, 2014.
*Hedger, Ron. “Looking for Pay Dirt: Gary Balough searches the soil for a little magic,” Stock Car Racing, February 2009.
*Managing Editor. “Gary Balough to be Inducted Into NE Modified Hall of Fame,” Dirt Track Digest, June 3, 2015.
*Racing-reference.info
*Strauss, Valerie. “Stock car racers charged in drug smuggling ring,” UPI Archives, February 19, 1982.
*Waltz, Keith. “Black Thursday Saw Racers Arrested In Drug Ring,” Speed Sport, February 16, 2010.
*Williams, Deb. “After more than 4 decades, the Rahilly brothers still enjoy building race engines,” The Charlotte Observer, July 29, 2014.

CUP: Lastcarlington Special: Clint Bowyer’s Chase bid takes disastrous turn after car left stranded at Darlington

PHOTO: Brock Beard

Clint Bowyer picked up the 7th last-place finish of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career in Sunday’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 at the Darlington Raceway when his #14 Carolina Ford Dealers Ford fell out with engine trouble after 18 of 367 laps.

The finish, which came in Bowyer’s 422nd start, was his first of the season and his first in a Cup Series race since last August at Michigan, 37 races ago.

Following a terrible one-off season for HScott Motorsports as he awaited the retirement of Tony Stewart, Bowyer was more than ready to take over the #14 ride this season at Stewart-Haas Racing.  After a 32nd-place finish in the Daytona 500, Bowyer finished inside the Top 15 for the next eleven consecutive races, including a 3rd at Fontana and a runner-up to Jimmie Johnson at Bristol.  This past summer, he finished 2nd two more times, wheeling a battered Ford at Sonoma behind Kevin Harvick, then Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. at Daytona.  But his first win of the season – his first, in fact, since 2012 – continued to elude him.

Another consequence of Bowyer’s consistent, but winless season has been his rank in the standings.  10th overall headed into Darlington, Bowyer was still ranked fifth among winless drivers in the Chase Grid.  Unfortunately for him, while Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray, and Chase Elliott held the three current winless positions, Bowyer was not only outside the cut, but ranked behind Joey Logano, whose encumbered win at Richmond also put him in a “must win” situation.

After running tributes to both Buddy Baker and Benny Parsons the last two years, Bowyer this season elected to honor 1993 and 2009 Southern 500 winner Mark Martin, one of two in the field.  While Trevor Bayne ran a throwback to Martin’s Stroh’s Light Ford on his #6 AdvoCare machine, Bowyer drove the Carolina Ford Dealers paint scheme that Martin ran for Bill Davis in what is today the XFINITY Series.  Building on the “throwback” theme of the weekend, Martin, who joined Bowyer at the track for media availability, is preparing a special race on September 26-30 at the Batesville Motor Speedway.  The Batesville track, site of Martin’s first-ever race in 1974, will host the “Race 4 Hope ’74,” which will benefit Mark and Arlene Martin’s youth initiative Hope for Arkansas, Inc.  More details on the event can be found here.

Bowyer’s turn in the Martin scheme began with a 14th-fastest lap in Friday’s first session, a 17th in Happy Hour, and 16th on the grid with a lap of 175.291mph.

Starting last was Carl Long, who was set to make his first Cup start since Kansas and his first Southern 500 since 2005.  On a weekend where splitter issues cut short his race in the XFINITY Series race, Long’s #66 CrashClaimsR.us Chevrolet turned in the slowest speed in two of the weekend’s three sessions, the exception a 38th in opening practice that put him ahead of Derrike Cope and Cody Ware.  He arrived on the grid in a different uniform from earlier in the weekend, swapping out the 2006 RoadLoans.com outfit from Saturday’s race for the Millstar Tools suit from his unsuccessful 2008 Daytona 500 bid.

Bowyer stopped at pit entrance by Stall 43
PHOTO: Brock Beard

When the green flag dropped, Long remained in last heading into and was behind by open track heading into Turn 1.  By Lap 2, his #66 had caught up to 39th-place starter Cody Ware, whose #51 was running the Mello Yello paint scheme from “Days of Thunder” in an effort to support relief for victims of Hurricane Harvey.  Long worked over Ware through the backstretch, then cut low in Turns 3 and 4, clearing him down the front.  Later in the race, Long would climb out of his car and hand over driving duties to his XFINITY teammate and Brickyard 400 14th-place finisher Timmy Hill.  Despite heavy right-side damage, the #66 managed a 33rd-place finish, the third-lowest finisher to end the race under power.

Next to join the last-place battle was Ryan Blaney, whose #21 Motorcraft Throwback Ford (honoring Kyle Petty’s 1987 scheme) caught the wall early and cut down a tire, forcing an unscheduled green-flag stop.  He was also the first of several drivers to miss the entrance to pit road, forcing him to come around again.  It was Blaney who was the first driver to lose a lap, and he’d lose a second one before he returned to the track.  Now with much fresher tires than the rest of the field, he proceeded to fly past several other cars, catching the attention of MRN’s radio broadcast.

On Lap 14, Trevor Bayne broke loose between Turns 3 and 4, smacking the wall with the right-rear of his #6 AdvoCare Throwback Ford resembling Mark Martin’s 1988-1989 Stroh’s Light Ford.  Bayne limped around the track for two laps, ultimately drawing the caution when he dropped debris and trailed smoke down the backstretch.  Bayne made it to pit road under caution and began losing laps as the “Crash Clock” ticked down.  It wasn’t long before he took 40th from Blaney.

Under this yellow, following the first round of caution-flag pit stops, Clint Bowyer was sitting in front of the empty Stall 43, just a short distance past the entrance to pit road.  Bowyer had reported an overheating issue, then smoke in the cockpit, and both driver and crew were trying to get a tow truck to push the car back to the pit stall.  For whatever reason, this help didn’t arrive promptly, and the #14 sat in the same spot for nearly three full laps.  Carl Long had to drive his car around Bowyer to make his stop.  “Why are they not coming to get us?” was asked over the radio.

By the time the truck came, Bowyer had fallen to 39th, behind Blaney but ahead of Bayne.  The crew decided to have the truck push the car back to the garage by way of the second and furthest entrance from Stall 43.  Around this point, Bowyer had dropped behind Bayne for last as the #6 managed to beat the “Crash Clock.”  Bayne managed to claw his way to 35th at the finish, the final car under power.  But by Lap 72, Bowyer was listed out of the race.

39th on Sunday went to Reed Sorenson, whose #15 Xchange of America Throwback Toyota to Morgan Shepherd’s 1990 Motorcraft Ford lost the clutch after 104 laps.  Curiously, this also required a push into the garage, which he received promptly on Lap 106.  38th fell to Daniel Suarez, who smacked the Turn 1 wall in his #19 Arris Toyota on Lap 125.  In 37th was last-place starter Cody Ware, who on Lap 157 tangled with A.J. Allmendinger in Turn 1, then collided with the approaching Matt DiBenedetto.  Rounding out the Bottom Five was Gray Gaulding, who shredded a right-rear tire and much of the bodywork when he spun on Lap 197, then pulled behind the wall after struggling to maintain minimum speed.  The same pit issues that same to define the night also plagued Gaulding, who stopped at the first garage entrance, turned, then pulled into the second.  Matters were made worse for Gaulding after a water pipe above his garage stall ruptured, showering his battered #83.

Now, for both Bowyer and Joey Logano, each driver is still in a “must win” situation next Saturday at Richmond, the final round to make the Chase.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first last-place finish for car #14 in a Cup Series race at Darlington since September 7, 1959, when Carl Burris’ 1957 Ford lost the engine after 2 laps of the Southern 500.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #14-Clint Bowyer / 18 laps / engine
39) #15-Reed Sorenson / 104 laps / clutch
38) #19-Daniel Suarez / 125 laps / crash
37) #51-Cody Ware / 144 laps / crash
36) #83-Gray Gaulding / 202 laps / crash

2017 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Circle Sport with The Motorsports Group (5)
2nd) BK Racing (3)
3rd) Hendrick Motorsports, Furniture Row Racing, Premium Motorsports, Rick Ware Racing, Roush-Fenway Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing (2)
4th) Chip Ganassi Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing, JTG-Daugherty Racing, Richard Childress Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports (1)

2017 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (12)
2nd) Toyota (8)
3rd) Ford (5)

2017 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP

TRUCKS: Tommy Regan’s first-lap exit ends Joe Nemechek’s last-place streak at two

PHOTO: FS1

Tommy Regan picked up the 3rd last-place finish of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career in Sunday’s Chevrolet Silverado 250 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park when his #0 Driven2Honor.org Chevrolet fell out with engine trouble after 0 of 64 laps.

The finish, which came in Regan’s seventh series start, was his second of the year and his first since Texas, eight races ago.  He now jumps to third in the 2017 LASTCAR Truck Series standings, trailing a tiebreaker with Todd Peck and Joe Nemechek.

In a year that saw him make his Cup debut at Sonoma while also parking Truck Series rides for both Jennifer Jo Cobb and Norm Benning, Regan returned to the Cobb team for the first time since Texas to drive Cobb’s white #0 Chevrolet.  It would be Regan’s first Truck start at Mosport, and would come as one of 32 drivers who entered, guaranteeing that he and the other entrants would start.

Regan didn’t participate in Saturday’s opening practice session, then turned a single lap in Happy Hour, ranking him 30th of the 32 drivers.  His lap of 81.386mph was completed in 108.770 seconds, just under 30 seconds slower than Christopher Bell’s lap at the top of the charts.  Regan didn’t turn a lap in qualifying, placing him 31st on the grid based on Owner Points.

Starting last was the only other driver who didn’t turn a lap in qualifying, Truck Series newcomer Joe Hudson.  Hudson was ranked beneath Regan as his ride, Mike Harmon’s #74 Chevrolet, was making its first series start since November 11, 2016.  This gave Harmon’s team a two-continent sweep on starting last, combined with Harmon’s own last-place start in the Red Farmer throwback at Darlington.  The truck carried sponsorship from Alaska Raceway Park.

When the race started, Mike Senica fell to the back as he reprised his role driving Norm Benning’s #57 Chevrolet this time didn’t carry sponsorship from Senica’s longtime sponsor Bell Plantation.  Senica started the race 8.396 seconds behind the race leader.  But while Senica was the last car on the track, he was only 31st, as Regan had yet to cross the stripe.  While the FS1 cameras showed Regan sitting in the 31st spot on the grid prior to the start, engine issues were the official listed cause of his sudden exit, and he was listed out by Lap 4.

UPDATE (Sept. 7): More details about the Regan last-place finish. According to motorsports artist Robert Taylor, who worked as Mike Senica's spotter on Sunday, Regan's #0 had mechanical problems from the moment it was unloaded, including engine, radiator, and transmission issues.  This required the Cobb team to swap parts between Regan's #0 and Cobb's #10.  The #0 also failed inspection on one go round, then passed by race day.  Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to keep the truck running.

The rest of the Bottom Five filled quickly.  On Lap 1, Joe Nemechek pulled off the track in his #89 Fire Alarm Services / DAB Constructors Chevrolet, a truck with the “J.H.” of his son’s name covered by a square of black tape on the roof rail.  That same time by, Senica had fallen back to 34.767 seconds behind the leader and 1.780 seconds behind the next truck of Jennifer Jo Cobb.  Senica then then dropped to 55.698 seconds behind the leader the next time by and was promptly lapped before he, too, took his truck behind the wall.  By Lap 6, when Joseph Hudson’s #74 slowed on the far outside exiting the hairpin curve, Jennifer Jo Cobb briefly held 29th in her Driven2Honor.org Chevrolet, but then passed Todd Peck’s #63 MB Motorsports Chevrolet before both retired.  Hudson ended up just outside the Bottom Five in 27th.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the third last-place finish for Cobb’s #0 in five races and the fourth for Cobb’s team in that time.  Chris Lafferty took the inaugural in 2013 followed by Caleb Roark in 2014, both of them going on to claim the LASTCAR Truck Series title for those seasons.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
32) #0-Tommy Regan / 0 laps / engine
31) #87-Joe Nemechek / 1 lap / suspension
30) #57-Mike Senica / 2 laps / clutch
29) #63-Todd Peck / 5 laps / transmission
28) #10-Jennifer Jo Cobb / 6 laps / clutch

2017 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing, Norm Benning Racing (3)
2nd) Copp Motorsports, NEMCO Motorsports (2)
3rd) Halmar Friesen Racing, Henderson Motorsports, MB Motorsports, MDM Motorsports, TJL Motorsports (1)

2017 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (15)

2017 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP

XFINITY: Lastcarlington Special: Matt Tifft scores first last-place finish; interviews with Jeff Green, Carl Long, Frank Warren, and Morgan Shepherd

PHOTO: Brock Beard

Matt Tifft picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR XFINITY Series career in Saturday’s VFW Sport Clips Help A Hero 200 at the Darlington Raceway when his #19 Ron John Surf Shop Toyota was involved in a two-car accident after 1 of 148 laps.  The finish came in Tifft’s 35th series start.

The 21-year-old driver and UNC college student from Hinckley, Ohio has this year become one of the most interesting stories in the XFINITY Series garage.  Mentored by several drivers, including XFINITY Series part-timers Tim Schendel and Benny Gordon, the last ten years has seen Tifft jump from go-karts to NASCAR’s second-tier division.  In 2014, he finished 8th in his Truck Series debut at Martinsville, and by the following season, both Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing came calling.  2015 saw his XFINITY debut at Kentucky, where he drove a Gibbs car to a 10th-place finish.  The next year, he scored his first pole at Talladega, scene of the first of back-to-back 8th-place runs.  But, soon after, it all almost came to an end.

During a routine appointment in June 2016, doctors discovered a brain tumor which required immediate medical attention.  Within weeks, Tifft underwent surgery and was out of the driver’s seat at Gibbs.  Doctors discovered the tumor was benign, and by September, he was cleared to race.  Through it all, Tifft maintained a positive outlook, sharing his story on social media.  He also didn’t lose his driving skills.  At Kentucky, his first race back, he scored a career-best 5th, followed by an 8th at Charlotte and a 9th at Texas.  By the end of the 2016 season, Tifft was announced as Gibbs’ full-time driver of the #19, replacing XFINITY Series champion and current Cup rookie Daniel Suarez.

Coming into Darlington, the highlight of Tifft’s 2017 season came just six days earlier at Road America.  In the final laps, it was Tifft who found himself in front, positioning himself for a first XFINITY Series win.  But, during those same laps, Jeremy Clements was charging through the pack, and caught Tifft for the lead coming to the white.  The two made contact, sending both cars into a spin.  While Clements managed to keep his car pointed straight, Tifft lost time getting back on course and was edged for 2nd by Michael Annett.  Still, the 3rd-place run tied a new career-best, matching another 3rd earlier that month at Mid-Ohio.  All together, Tifft sat 7th in the point standings after 23 races.

Darlington’s third annual “Throwback Weekend” saw Tifft drive one of many tributes to Dale Earnhardt – specifically the #19 Belden Asphalt Chevrolet that “The Intimidator” raced in the NAPA National 500 at Charlotte on October 9, 1977.  The car Earnhardt drove was owned by longtime owner-driver Henley Gray, who at the time had retired from Cup racing with 374 starts over 14 seasons without a win.  That day, Earnhardt did no better – rear end trouble took him out of the race after just 25 laps, leaving him 38th in a field of 41 (the late Bruce Hill, who A.J. Allmendinger honored last year, took last).  Tifft’s Toyota would carry a similar paint scheme, but with sponsorship from the Ron John Surf Shop.

At the track, Tifft ran 17th in the opening practice session, 13th in Happy Hour, and came up just short of making the final round in qualifying, securing the 14th starting spot with a lap of 169.526mph.  Just one driver was sent home after qualifying – the #15 Flex Seal Chevrolet of Reed Sorenson, who failed to complete a qualifying lap due to transmission issues.

Starting last on Saturday was Mike Harmon, whose #74 Dodge for Veterans Motorsports, Inc. was brought to the track in a small white trailer parked near the paddock entrance to the garage area.  The black car was wrapped in white and gold, honoring longtime NASCAR racer Red Farmer and his #97 Ford.  Joining Harmon at the rear were Brandon Jones and Tommy Joe Martins, each sent to the back for unapproved adjustments.  By the time the field entered the backstretch for the first time on Lap 1, all three had passed Morgan Shepherd, dropping the #89 Visone RV / Racing With Jesus Chevrolet to last.  Then, coming onto the front stretch, trouble broke out.

Coming off Turn 4, Tifft was locked in a tight battle with Ross Chastain for position when the two made contact, the right-front of Chastain’s #4 South Carolina Education Lottery Chevrolet into the left-rear of Tifft’s Toyota.  The contact sent Tifft careening down the track, where he hit the inside SAFER barrier head-on.  The car managed to just roll past the start / finish line before it stopped, crediting him with one lap complete.  The damage was well beyond a pit road repair, so the #19 was pulled into the garage area, eliminating him under the “Crash Clock.”

On Lap 2, Carl Long pulled his #13 OCR Gaz Bar Dodge behind the wall.  The Motorsports Business Management crew looked under the car for a few moments before the driver re-fired the engine, drove around the garage building, and returned to the track through the backstretch pits.  At this point, Long was in 39th, at least one lap down.  Only then did Darlington’s track crew tow Tifft’s #19 back to the garage area, where crews removed the crumpled front valence and prepared to load it onto the truck.

Next to arrive in the garage was Jeff Green, who pulled into the garage via the rear entrance around the time Ty Dillon recovered from his backstretch spin on Lap 9.  Both Green and Long’s pit stalls didn’t have any sets of tires at the ready.  Green’s stall had an extra generator cart from RSS Racing teammate Ryan Sieg’s team, as well as at least one crewman wearing a headset.  Long’s pit stall had the #40 team’s war wagon, still covered after opening ceremonies.  Long would pull into the garage a second time on Lap 32, and this time was done for the day.  I had a chance to speak to both drivers, who finished 39th and 38th in the final running order.

"It’s paying the bills,” said Green. “That’s all I’m doing, you know. . .We get to have a little fun, short lived time.  But if I hadn’t had my career, you know, it’d be tougher for me to do it, you know what I mean?  But I’ve been there, done that.”  Green was also appreciative of his name staying out there in the NASCAR media.  “Any time you get someone talking about you, it’s good.”  The financial aspect of parking, particularly for a small team like RSS Racing, creates a delicate balance for “start-and-parks” between gaining a couple spots and risking damaging the car.  “[Sometimes] we’re not really gaining anything by running 50 laps.  But for someone like Morgan (Shepherd), he’s a start-and-park, a couple other of those guys, if we know they’ll start, we’ll try and outrun them, because it’s about a thousand dollars of difference for each spot, you know what I mean?  That’s what we’re doing it for, the money, we’re not doing it for anything else.  So if we can gain a couple of spots, that’s a couple of grand.”  We at LASTCAR.info also presented Green with a shirt commemorating his 100 NASCAR last-place finishes.  “I didn’t think I had 100 yet,” he said with a smile.

Long, wearing the RoadLoans.com driver’s uniform from his attempt to make the 2006 Daytona 500, was trying to figure out the issue that forced him to make two trips to the garage.  “Not real sure.  Something in the suspension didn’t feel right, and it just got to where it was in a drift.  My guys were stuck on pit road, and so they want me to look after it (laughs). . .I think the splitter’s bottoming out and going up the track and it’s just a handling issue and I’m not running this car for points, it weren’t no use when the leaders started catching me.  I just save all this for tomorrow, so I can sweat it all out tomorrow.”  When asked about his #66 Chevrolet on the Cup side, which he’ll drive in his first Southern 500 since 2005, Long was looking forward to it.  “The car drives pretty good.  I’m a little bit puzzled because I thought it drove pretty good, but I’m still two seconds slower than the other guys.  So, drives good but don’t have any speed, so hopefully we can stay out of the way.”  Long’s goal for Sunday was simple.  “Finish."

37th went to Morgan Shepherd, whose pit stall had just one set of scuffed tires prior to the race, a small war wagon, and a bright orange cross that served as his pit board.  NASCAR veterans Frank Warren and Billy Fulcher, both invited to the track by Premium Motorsports, were standing by the stall before the green flag.  Warren was wearing one of his bright yellow team shirts and a Premium hat.

"First race I’ve been to in a long time,” said Warren, who campaigned the #79 for most of his 396 Cup starts from 1963 through 1980.  “I used to go to Daytona once in a while to watch them, but I haven’t been to a race since, I guess probably ten years.”  Like many drivers of his era, Warren traditionally taped sticks of gum to his dashboard.  Warren preferred Big Red.  He also fondly remembered J.D. McDuffie, who did the same with cigars.  “J.D. and I were very close.  It killed me when he died.  I still talk to his wife once in a while.  But there were several times when driving all in the area I used to go by and stop at his house and we’d eat dinner at his house.  And then we’d go off to wherever.”

During the opening laps, Morgan Shepherd was running at or near the back of the pack, trading spots with Mike Harmon.  The veteran remained on the track through the race’s first four cautions, and was setting up to beat his record of 59 laps complete earlier this year at Loudon.  He also stayed out during a round of pit stops, ranking him 2nd behind Jeremy Clements for a lap, then to the lead for two more.  Shepherd was still leading the pack at the one to go signal before he pulled over off Turn 2, letting Joey Logano and the rest of the leaders form up for the start.  It marked the first time Shepherd had led more than one lap in an XFINITY race since April 27, 2012, when he led 3 at Richmond.

On Lap 54, just after the end of Stage 1, Shepherd pulled his car behind the wall and stopped next to a tent set up next to the small white trailer and pick-up truck his crew had driven to the track.  With his wife Cindy standing by, Shepherd took his time getting out of the car, then retrieved his rolling tool box and worked his way through the drawers.  With NASCAR officials watching, Shepherd took apart the carburetor and set to work on a faulty fuel pump.  Although Shepherd did later remove the tapered spacer from the carburetor, he did also set to work on the fuel pump, working on his own car like the many great independents before him.  Once the crew brought back his tires and war wagon, I spoke with him as he enjoyed a Mello Yello in his small white trailer.

"It cut off,” said Shepherd, “and I thought the fuel pump quit on us, which it did.  And I got over here and it picked back up, and I realized it went through the banking, it lost fuel pressure.  The pickup’s on the right side.”  It’s been a difficult year for Shepherd, who each week has enjoyed just a handful of laps in his 50th anniversary season.  “We don’t have sponsorship to go out and race, buy tires and all that, buy engines, so we just run a little bit.  But the car did cut off, lost fuel pressure.  What it was, the fuel was just away from the pickup."

I also asked Shepherd about his favorite Darlington memory.  “Bob Bahre, who owned a speedway up at Oxford, Maine and Loudon, New Hampshire, his brother Dick Bahre, I helped him out, and he had a Cup car.  And we came down here and, believe it or not, we was looking like we was gonna win the race.  And the battery wire got up against the bodywork, it went through and shorted it out, and so we fell out.  But we had a winning car that day.  And plus in ’85, whenever Bill (Elliott) won the race up here, we had the car to beat – Carolina Tools Chevy – and we cracked a cylinder head and had to pull out, but we was better than Bill that day but didn’t get to show it.”

Finally, when asked why he stayed out to lead those two laps when there’s only points for stage wins, Shepherd was clear.  “I’m almost 76, and we led the race here at Darlington.”  Nothing more needed to be said.

For more on helping out Shepherd Racing Ventures, you can donate to his website at www.morganshepherd.com.  The team also has hero cards printed with his gold-and-black 50th Anniversary paint scheme.

Rounding out the Bottom Five was David Starr, whose #99 Chevrolet slowed suddenly down the backstretch in the early moments, then ultimately lost 16 laps to the leaders to finish the first car under power.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first last-place finish for car #19 in XFINITY competition since the 2015 finale at Homestead, where Jeff Green’s run in the TriStar Motorsports Toyota ended with transmission issues after 3 laps of the Ford EcoBoost 300.  It was Green’s sixth last-place run in a row, setting a season-high record of 23 finishes for the year.  It is also the first last-place finish for car #19 in an XFNIITY race at Darlington.

THE BOTTOM FIVE

40) #19-Matt Tifft / 1 lap / crash
39) #93-Jeff Green / 8 laps / rear gear
38) #13-Carl Long / 29 laps / handling
37) #89-Morgan Shepherd / 51 laps / fuel pump / led 2 laps
36) #99-David Starr / 132 laps / running

2017 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP

1st) RSS Racing (13)
2nd) B.J. McLeod Motorsports, Shepherd Racing Ventures (2)
3rd) Chip Ganassi Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing, Kaulig Racing, King Autosport, Motorsports Business Management, Richard Childress Racing, SS Green Light Racing (1)

2017 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (22)
2nd) Dodge, Toyota (1)

2017 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP

Also, according to Blogger, this is the 1,000th article published on this site (though this includes the first draft of this website, "43 Stories," whose archives can be found in the 2008 section.)