SEASON IN REVIEW
Bronx, New York driver Ralph Liguori picked up his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 1956, scoring three last-place finishes in sixteen starts during the fifty-six-race season.
Liguori was competing in what turned out to be his sixth and final season on the Cup Series tour. Although he raced for Mercury, Chrysler, and Oldsmobile that season, all three of his last-place finishes came while driving his #6 1956 Dodge.
The first finish occurred on March 25 at the Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta, Georgia. Liguori’s machine was involved in a crash after three laps, ending a promising weekend where he qualified 8th in the 28-car field. The next finish came four races later on May 5, where steering woes following a crash took him out after he completed just one lap at the Columbia Speedway in Columbia, South Carolina. The third finish followed five races later on May 20 in Martinsville, Virginia, where a piston knocked him out of the race after eight laps.
Liguori’s final Cup start took place on October 23 at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds in Shelby, North Carolina. He finished 23rd that day after a busted coil stopped his Dodge after 98 of 200 laps. In 76 Cup starts, Liguori’s best career finish was a 3rd at Wilson, North Carolina on May 9, 1954, following Buck Baker and Al Keller across the finish line. However, Liguori also went on to compete in the USAC Champ Car / Gold Crown Series for another fourteen years. It was in that series that Liguori earned a career-best runner-up finish in his next-to-last start at the Indiana State Fairgrounds on September 12, 1970, behind Al Unser. Liguori died on July 21, 2020.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
A handful more future NASCAR stars finished last for the first time in 1956, including “Tiger” Tom Pistone, Al Keller, and Junior Johnson.
Pistone’s and Keller’s last-place runs occurred due to costly disqualifications. Pistone was disqualified from the 1956 opener in Hickory, North Carolina on November 13, 1955 after his #91 1955 Chevrolet was found with illegal engine parts, forfeiting a strong sixth-place finish. Keller was flagged the winner of the March 4 race in West Palm Beach, Florida, but his #64 1956 Chevrolet was penalized for running illegal pistons, handing the win to Billy Myers.
Johnson scored two last-place finishes in 1956. The first came at Hickory, North Carolina on May 12 where a burnt piston stopped his #55 Brushy Mountain Motors 1956 Pontiac after nine laps, while the second came August 12 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin - yes, the same track where the Nationwide Series returned in 2010 - where his #296 DePaolo Engineering 1956 Ford burnt the clutch after the opening lap. That race saw two of his four DePaolo teammates - Bill Amick and Curtis Turner - follow Johnson to the garage in the first 21 laps.
Eight days before the Road America race, NASCAR cancelled a race at the Tulsa Fairgrounds in Tulsa, Oklahoma after 34 of 200 laps due to excessive dust that rendered the dirt track nearly impossible to race upon. At the moment of the cancellation, six cars in the thirteen-car field had already fallen out, including the Dodge of Lee Petty, who parked his #42 and ran to the flag stand to wave the red flag himself. Had the race been scored, Bill Moore would have earned his only last-place finish in Cup Series competition as his #551 1956 Pontiac overheated nine laps into the event.
It was also in 1956 that Jimmy Lewallen scored the fifth last-place finish of his NASCAR career, equaling the all-time record for last-place finishes set by Frank Mundy in 1951.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Ralph Liguori (3)
2nd) Dick Beaty, Wally Gervais, Junior Johnson, Billy Myers, Lee Petty, Blackie Pitt, Billy Rafter (2)
3rd) Johnny Allen, Ole Anderson, Fred Bince, Sonny Black, Billy Carden, Don Carr, Sherman Clark, Spook Crawford, Ray Crowley, Arnold Denley, Francis Dionne, C.H. Dingler, Joe Eubanks, Tim Flock, Jim Graham, Don Hamilton, Louis Headley, Harvey Henderson, Ray Hendrick, Bobby Johns, Joe Lee Johnson, Al Keller, Brownie King, Jimmie Lewallen, Owen Loggins, Lyle Matlock, Joe Bill McGraw, Earl Moss, Arden Mounts, Tom Pistone, Don Porter, Jim Reed, Eddie Skinner, Jack Smith, Cy Spencer, Gwyn Staley, Kenneth Wagner, Jack Zink (1)
