SEASON IN REVIEW
Ft. Johnson, New York driver Earle Canavan picked up his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 1977, scoring three last-place finishes in five starts during a thirty-race-season. Canavan set a new record for fewest starts in a season for a LASTCAR Champion by breaking Glenn Dunaway’s 1949 mark of six. The title came two years after Canavan lost the bottom-five tiebreaker with Coo Coo Marlin for the 1975 LASTCAR title.
Canavan was competing in his eighth season on the NASCAR Cup Series tour, coming off a 1976 season in which he competed in a career-high twelve races. His best career finish of 12th was set and matched in two races in 1973, first at Darlington, South Carolina on April 15 and then at Brooklyn, Michigan on June 24. Then, as in 1977, Canavan was still driving for his own team, most often in car #01. 1977 saw Canavan driving a #01 Dodge to four DNFs in as many starts, followed by a 23rd-place finish in the Southern 500 at Darlington on September 5.
Canavan’s first last-place run of the season came in the spring Darlington race, the April 3 running of the Rebel 500, where his Dodge lost the engine after eight laps. The next came eleven races later at the Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania on July 31, where another engine let go after 13 laps. The third came two races later at Brooklyn, Michigan, a race where Canavan had sponsorship from the Benihana restaurant chain. Unfortunately, yet another engine failure came even earlier in that August 22 race when he completed just the opening lap.
Canavan competed in just twenty more races after the 1977 season, making his final start in the 1986 Goodwrench 500 in Rockingham, North Carolina where his #01 Gates Rubber Pontiac lost yet another engine, but this time came home 32nd in the 40-car field. He was unsuccessful in qualifying for two more races that season at Bristol, Tennessee and North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, and Canavan retired from racing with 68 career starts. He died on February 9, 2016.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
In the 1977 season opener, the Winston Western 500 at Riverside, California, Bobby Allison picked up the only last-place finish for the AMC Matador, a make which enjoyed a brief, but inconsistent run in the Cup Series. Allison’s #12 qualified 8th, but fell out after three laps with engine failure.
Lennie Pond, who would go on to score an upset victory in Talladega, Alabama the next year, scored his first last-place finish in 1977, trailing the field in the October 23 running of the American 500 in Rockingham, North Carolina when his #54 Chevrolet lost the engine after 66 laps. Donnie Allison, who won that race, scored his own first last-place finish in the season finale at Ontario, California two races later when his #1 Hawaiian Tropic Chevrolet suffered electrical problems nine laps into the November 20 event.
Between Pond and Allison’s first last-place finishes came the November 6 running of the Dixie 500 in Hampton, Georgia, where Jimmy “Smut” Means scored his first of seventeen career last-place finishes. That day, his Bill Gray-owned #52 Bell Brothers Auto Parts Chevrolet dropped out with ignition failure after seven laps. Means, competing in just his second season on the tour, would become an owner-driver the next season, running the #52 under the Means Racing banner for more than fifteen years.
The year 1977 was also when Jim Hurtubise scored his only last-place finish in NASCAR Cup Series competition. Hurtubise’s #35 Avanti CB Ford fell out with ignition failure without completing a lap of the March 20 running of the Atlanta 500 in Hampton, Georgia. It was in the 1966 running of that event that Hurtubise scored his only victory in dramatic fashion, having suffered severe burns in an open-wheel race two years earlier. Hurtubise was the only driver to score his first Cup Series win at Atlanta Motor Speedway until Jerry Nadeau followed suit on November 20, 2000.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Earle Canavan (3)
2nd) Bruce Hill, Rick Newsom, Bobby Wawak (2)
3rd) Bobby Allison, Donnie Allison, Kenny Brightbill, Dean Dalton, Cecil Gordon, Ferrel Harris, Jim Hurtubise, Mike Kempton, Larry LaMay, Coo Coo Marlin, Jimmy Means, Joe Mihalic, Junior Miller, Ed Negre, Don Noel, Lennie Pond, Baxter Price, Ramo Stott, D.K. Ulrich, Frank Warren, Raymond Williams (1)
