SEASON IN REVIEW
Martinsville, Virginia driver Buddy Arrington picked up his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 1966, scoring three last-place finishes in twenty-five starts during a forty-nine-race season. In doing so, Arrington stopped Jimmy Helms short of his second consecutive LASTCAR Cup Series Championship by a single bottom-five finish, 9-8. The difference came down to Arrington’s final last-place finish of the season in Concord, North Carolina on October 16, four races after Helms’ last start of the year.
Arrington was competing in his third season on the Cup Series tour, driving for four different teams, including his own. The first of Arrington’s last-place finishes in 1966 came while driving for Joan Petre when he lost the engine on his #73 1964 Ford after the opening lap of a 200-lap event at Bowman Gray Stadium on April 11. The next came fifteen races later on July 7 when Arrington, back in his self-prepared #67 1964 Dodge, qualified a career-best 4th at Manassas, Virginia, but dropped out after 28 laps with a broken axle. The third finish came in the National 500 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on October 16, scene of Helms’ last-place run the year before. In 1966, Arrington’s #67 suffered an engine failure that knocked him out after seven laps.
Although Arrington collected just three top-ten finishes in 1966, he would go on to become one of the most persistent owner-drivers in NASCAR history. Although he never won a race, he competed in 560 races from 1964 through 1988, collecting fifteen Top Fives and 103 Top Tens. As the Mopar teams scaled back in the 1970s and 1980s, Arrington continued to fly the flag for the team as late as 1985, and he finished 7th in points in 1982 as the only full-time racer running Dodge Miradas and Chrysler Imperials, most of them painted a distinctive red-and-blue.
Arrington improved on his 4th-place qualifying run in the ill-fated Manassas race on April 26, 1981, when he started 3rd at his home track in Martinsville, Virginia. That race, the first victory for Morgan Shepherd, was one of the first ever televised by ESPN. His best career finish was a pair of 3rd-place runs: the first at Nashville Fairgrounds in 1965 and the second at Talladega Superspeedway on May 6, 1979. That day at Talladega, Arrington qualified 4th and trailed Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip at the finish, all the while holding off Richard Petty during his final championship season. Arrington retired after his 560th start, a 28th-place finish in the Firecracker 400 at Daytona on July 2, 1988. Arrington died on August 2, 2022.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
On May 13, at the Starlite Speedway in Monroe, North Carolina, an “Independent 250” was held among the series’ owner-drivers. Finishing last that day, the 12th of his career, was Roy Tyner, whose #9 1966 Chevrolet broke the transmission after 20 of 250 laps. Darel Dieringer took the checkered flag. A similar event was hosted seven years later. Hosted by owner-driver Raymond Williams, an unsanctioned NASCAR event was held at the Trico Speedway on November 25, 1973, which also pitted independent drivers against each other. Cecil Gordon won that event, but as of this writing, there is no record of who finished last.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Buddy Arrington [9 B5s], Jimmy Helms [8 B5s] (3)
2nd) Rene Charland, Joel Davis, Darel Dieringer, Ed Jordan, Sonny Lamphear, Elmo Langley, Tiny Lund, Tom Pistone, Wendell Scott, G.C. Spencer (2)
3rd) Buck Baker, Buddy Baker, Bunkie Blackburn, Neil Castles, Stick Elliott, Larry Hess, Ned Jarrett, Bill Latham, Jack Lawrence, Max Ledbetter, J.D. McDuffie, G.T. Nolan, David Pearson, Richard Petty, Charles Powell, Wayne Smith, Bill Seifert, Billy Stiles, E.J. Trivette, Curtis Turner, Roy Tyner, Frank Warren, Blackie Watt (1)
