SEASON IN REVIEW
Atlanta, Georgia driver Wayne Gillette picked up his first LASTCAR Cup Series title in 1969, picking up five last-place finishes in sixteen starts during a fifty-four-race season. Gillette kept J.D. McDuffie from his second consecutive LASTCAR Cup Series title by five bottom-five finishes, but both drivers tied the record for the most last-place finishes in a single season, set by Jimmy Pardue in 1961 and equaled by Jimmy Helms in 1965.
The year 1969 marked Gillette’s first and only season on the NASCAR Cup Series tour. The 30-year-old driver drove Chevrolets for owner E.C. Reid, who debuted his organization the previous season. Gillette made his first Cup start for Reid at the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan on June 15. As it turned out, it was also where Gillette picked up his first last-place finish after his #80 1967 Chevrolet suffered a rear end failure after the opening lap.
Gillette’s next finish came three races later in the North State 200 in Raleigh, North Carolina when he was the first of three drivers to quit the race in the first fourteen laps. Gillette exited after Lap 2. The third finish came four races after that in Reid’s #09, where engine problems stopped him after the first lap around the Trenton, New Jersey track on July 13. Finish number four followed thirteen days later on July 26 in Nashville, Tennessee as he quit the race after completing only five laps. He quit the race early once more at Columbia, South Carlina on September 18, finishing last after completing only three laps.
In all, Gillette did not finish fifteen of his sixteen career starts in 1969 and he quit in six of them. He finished only his final career start, the October 12 National 500 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he came home 23rd out of 45 cars. Ironically, that was not Gillette’s best career finish - he came home 19th when he quit the August 24 race at Asheville-Weaverville Speedway after 188 of 500 laps.
Whether these statistics indicate Gillette was one of NASCAR’s first so-called “start-and-park” drivers is unclear from the records, but he never raced in NASCAR after his only 16 career starts in 1969.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
The year 1969 saw the controversial first race at the Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama. The last-place finisher of the September 14 race was Don Schissler, whose #16 Bud Moore-prepared 1969 Mercury lost the engine on the very first lap. It was the third and final NASCAR start for the part-time USAC Champ Car driver.
Richard “Dick” Brooks picked up his first last-place finish on March 30 in the Atlanta 500 in Hampton, Georgia when his #32 1969 Plymouth lost the engine after 38 laps, ending a promising weekend where he qualified 11th in the 40-car field.
Lonnie “LeeRoy” Yarbrough, who won the Daytona 500, Southern 500, and World 600 in 1969, picked up the first of his only two last-place finishes that year in the next-to-last race of the season. Yarbrough started outside-pole for the 500-lap race in Macon, Georgia on November 9, but quit after 64 laps when his pit crew refused to change his tires under caution.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Wayne Gillette [13 B5s], J.D. McDuffie [8 B5s] (5)
2nd) James Cox, John Sears (3)
3rd) Earl Brooks, Bill Champion, Hoss Ellington, Walson Gardner, Paul Dean Holt, Bobby Mausgrover, Roy Tyner (2)
4th) Bob Ashbrook, Buddy Baker, Don Biederman, Richard Brickhouse, Dick Brooks, Bob England, Cecil Gordon, Henley Gray, Ed Hessert, Dick Johnson, John Kennedy, John Kenney, Elmo Langley, Ed Negre, Dick Poling, Sherral Pruitt, Don Schissler, Mack Sellers, Bill Seifert, Wayne Smith, G.C. Spencer, Frank Warren, LeeRoy Yarbrough, Buddy Young (1)
