SEASON IN REVIEW
Daytona Beach, Florida driver Richie Panch picked up his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 1974, picking up two last-place finishes in twenty-eight starts during a thirty-race season. Panch edged Walter Ballard for the title by two bottom-ten finishes, 10-8.
Panch, age twenty, was competing in his second season on the NASCAR Cup Series tour, following a brief four-race stint for owner Junie Donlavey in 1973. In all but two of his starts in 1974, Panch drove for owner Roy Thornley in car #98, which switched between a 1974 Chevrolet and a 1972 Ford. It was in the Chevrolet in the season-opening event at Riverside, California that Panch scored a surprising 9th, which he bested with a 3rd at Richmond on September 8. Between the two races came his two last-place finishes.
The first last-place finish of Panch’s 1974 came in the Atlanta 500 in Hampton, Georgia on March 24, when his #98 started 7th, only to lose the engine after 34 laps. The other finish came five races later in Nashville, Tennessee’s Music City USA 420 on May 11 and 12. The Nashville race was Panch’s only for owner Don Robertson, whose #25 1973 Dodge overheated 56 laps into the race. The Nashville event was one of fourteen races that ran shorter distances that season due to the country’s lingering energy crisis.
Panch competed in just fifteen more races after 1974, ending his career with three Top Fives and eleven Top Tens in forty-seven starts. He passed away on September 1, 1985.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Two of NASCAR’s most prolific veterans picked up their first last-place finishes in 1974. Chuck Bown, who would make seventy-three starts from 1972 through 1996, finished last in the 1974 opener at Riverside, California when his #03 1972 Dodge lost the engine after nine laps on January 20. It was the same event where Panch scored his first Top Ten when the race completed on January 26. Hershel McGriff, whose NASCAR Cup career stretched 85 starts over forty-three years from 1950 through 1993, finished last in the season’s second race at Riverside on June 9. McGriff’s #26W 1973 Chevrolet broke a driveshaft after the opening lap of the Tuborg 400.
In 1974, Alisa Craig, Ontario driver Earl Ross became the first foreign-born driver to win a NASCAR Cup race after his victory at Martinsville on September 29. Nearly five months earlier on May 5, Ross also became the first Canadian to finish last in a Cup Series race when his #52 Carling Breweries 1974 Chevrolet lost the engine after 28 laps of the Winston 500 at Talladega, Alabama.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Walter Ballard [4 B5s, 8 B10s], Joe Frasson [4 B5s, 5 B10s], Richie Panch [4 B5s, 10 B10s] (2)
2nd) Carl Adams, Joey Arrington, Johnny Barnes, Tony Bettenhousen, Chuck Bown, Jim Bray, Richard D. Brown, Bill Champion, Richard Childress, Ronnie Childress, Dean Dalton, Dan Daughtry, Bobby Fleming, Hershel McGriff, Gary Myers, Ed Negre, Paul Radford, Marty Robbins, Charlie Roberts, Jackie Rogers, Earl Ross, Jabe Thomas, Frank Warren (1)
