SEASON IN REVIEW
Horse Shoe, North Carolina driver Cecil “Flash” Gordon scored his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 1970, scoring four last-place finishes in forty-four starts during the forty-eight-race season. For the fourth time in the last five years, the LASTCAR title was decided by a single bottom-five finish. Gordon edged second-year driver Bill Shirey 11-10. Gordon scored the deciding eleventh Bottom Five with three races to go - a 26th-place run at Martinsville on October 8, a race that Shirey didn’t attempt.
Gordon was competing in his third season on the NASCAR Cup Series tour. After driving for Bill Siefert in most of his first sixty Cup starts along with one-off runs for Henley Gray, Larry Wehrs, and Wayne Smith, Gordon decided to start his own team for the 1970 season. Curiously, Gordon Racing picked car #24, just as another Gordon (of no relation) campaigned 22 years later.
Gordon’s first last-place finish of the 1970 season came in the Daytona 500 at the Daytona International Speedway, making him the first LASTCAR champion to finish last in that race since Curtis Crider in 1963. In the February 22 race won by Pete Hamilton, Gordon’s car broke the a-frame after seven laps, just barely edging Hamilton’s teammate Richard Petty, who lost his engine that same lap.
The next last-place finish eight races later on April 30 in Columbia, South Carolina, where Gordon started 4th in the 27-car field only to lose the transmission after just two of 200 laps. The third finish came nine races after in Hickory, North Carolina on June 20, where his Ford overheated after 32 laps. The fourth finish came another thirteen races later in the Yankee 400 at the Michigan International Speedway where a blown engine kept him from completing a single lap.
Nevertheless, Gordon scored two Top Fives and eleven Top Tens in 1970, granting him an 11th-place finish in points.
Like Buddy Arrington and J.D. McDuffie, Gordon continued to run his own team in just about every one of his remaining Cup Series starts. The mid-1970s were the best years of Gordon’s career, as from 1971 through 1977, he finished in the Top 10 in points every season except 1976, finishing as high as 3rd in 1973. He was also a consistent qualifier, having competed in every points race run from 1972 through 1977. He earned nearly all of his twenty-nine Top Fives and 111 Top Tens during that time, including a career-best 2nd-place finish to David Pearson at Dover, Delaware on May 18-19, 1975.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Dave Marcis, soon to become an owner-driver himself, scored his first last-place finish in 1970 at South Boston, Virginia on August 29. Driving for Wayne Smith, one of Cecil Gordon’s old teams, Marcis’ #33 1969 Chevrolet fell out after three of 281 laps when he quit the race.
In the overall LASTCAR standings, G.C. Spencer scored another three last-place finishes in 1970, bringing his career total to 16, thus tying Junior Johnson for the most last-place finishes in NASCAR Cup Series history.
John Sears picked up the fifth and final last-place finish of his NASCAR Cup Series career at Raleigh, North Carolina on September 30 when his #4 1969 Dodge lost the engine after 16 laps. This was also the last NASCAR-sanctioned dirt track race held until July 24, 2013, when Jeff Babcock lost his engine 63 laps into a NASCAR Truck Series event at the Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Cecil Gordon [11 B5s], Bill Shirey [10 B5s] (4)
2nd) Bill Champion, James Cox, Henley Gray, G.C. Spencer (3)
3rd) Larry Baumel, Neil Castles, Dick May, Bill Seifert, Frank Warren (2)
4th) Buddy Arrington, Arnold Bennett, Earl Brooks, Paul Dorrity, Henley Gray, Johnny Halford, John Jennings, John Kenney, Dave Marcis, J.D. McDuffie, Ken Meisenhelder, Wendell Scott, John Sears, Wayne Smith, Bugs Stevens, Don Tarr, E.J. Trivette, Raymond Williams, Cale Yarborough (1)
