SEASON IN REVIEW
Sanford, North Carolina driver J.D. McDuffie scored his fourth LASTCAR Cup Series title in 1985, scoring two last-place finishes in twenty-three starts during a twenty-eight-race season. McDuffie became not only the first four-time LASTCAR Cup Series Champion, but the first to score titles in consecutive years. For the second year in a row, he also narrowly won a bottom-five tiebreaker, this time over Buddy Baker, 7-6.
McDuffie was competing in his twenty-first season on the Cup Series tour. After running Pontiacs in nearly all of his starts since NASCAR downsized their cars in 1981, 1985 saw McDuffie run a mix of Pontiacs, Chevrolets and Fords, all of them in his familiar #70. He failed to qualify for five races that season, down from seven in 1984, and scored a pair of season-best 15th-place finishes, but he also racked up DNFs in fifteen of his twenty-three starts.
The first of McDuffie’s two last-place finishes that season came on the road course in Riverside, California on June 2, where his #70 Rumple Furniture Pontiac blew a valve after three laps. The other finish came four races later at Long Pond, Pennsylvania on July 21, when the same car blew an engine after ten laps.
McDuffie finished 27th in points in 1985, then came home 26th in 1986 after running twenty of the twenty-nine races. Heading into the 1987 season, McDuffie had not finished in the Top Ten in more than four years, dating back to a 10th-place finish in the Warner W. Hodgdon Carolina 500 at Rockingham, North Carolina on March 28, 1982.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Several drivers who came to prominence in the late 1980s scored their first last-place finishes in 1985.
Ken Schrader finished last at Rockingham, North Carolina on March 3 when his #90 Ultra Seal Ford blew the engine after 55 laps. Schrader, competing in his first full season on the Cup Series tour for owner Junie Donlavey, would score the first of his three consecutive Daytona 500 poles three years later along with his first victory at Talladega, Alabama.
Another hard charger, Tim Richmond, was competing in his sixth season in the Cup Series when he finished last at Bristol, Tennessee on April 6 after his #27 Old Milwaukee Pontiac crashed 36 laps into the Valleydale 500. In 1986, Richmond would move to Hendrick Motorsports and score an incredible seven wins, thirteen Top Fives, and seventeen Top Tens on his way to a 3rd-place finish in the point standings.
Rusty Wallace was racing in his fifth season when the engine expired on his #2 Alugard Pontiac just two laps into the July 4 running of the Firecracker 400. Wallace would also make a key team switch for 1986, moving to the Blue Max Racing team that would propel him to his first Cup win at Bristol, Tennessee the following spring, then to his only NASCAR Cup Series Championship in 1989. Wallace would continue to struggle at Daytona throughout his career, never once winning a points race there.
In the next-to-last race of the 1985 season in Hampton, Georgia, 26-year-old second-generation racer Davey Allison finished last in the Atlanta Journal 500 when his #1 Lancaster Premium Chevrolet blew the engine after 52 laps, ending his third career Cup start. After another partial season in 1986, Allison would score the outside-pole to the 1987 Daytona 500, kick-starting a record-setting Rookie of the Year campaign where he won his first two races.
1985 was also the year that Chrysler picked up its final two last-place finishes in NASCAR, both coming with owner-driver Maurice Randall. The final finish came at Dover, Delaware on September 15 when Randall’s #93 MRE Racing Chrysler overheated after the opening lap and trailed the 39-car field.
“The Silver Fox” David Pearson scored his sixth and final Cup Series last-place finish at Darlington, South Carolina on September 1. In what would become one of the most famous runnings of the Southern 500, Pearson’s #21 Chattanooga Chew Ford started 2nd alongside polesitter Bill Elliott, who would go on to win the race and the first-ever Winston Million. Pearson lost the engine after 17 laps, finishing 40th at the track that was the scene of his 105th and final Cup Series win nearly five years earlier.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Buddy Baker [6 B5s], J.D. McDuffie [7 B5s], Maurice Randall [3 B5s],
Tim Richmond [3 B5s], Ronnie Thomas [2 B5s] (2)
2nd) Bobby Allison, Davey Allison, Eddie Bierschwale, Neil Bonnett, Trevor Boys, Delma Cowart, Ron Esau, Cecil Gordon, Jeff Hooker, Jimmy Means, Benny Parsons, Phil Parsons, David Pearson, Mike Potter, Joe Ruttman, Ken Schrader, Morgan Shepherd, Rusty Wallace (1)
