SEASON IN REVIEW
Huntsville, Alabama driver Jimmy “Smut” Means picked up his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 1988, scoring four last-place finishes in twenty-seven starts during a twenty-nine-race season.
Means was competing in his thirteenth season on the Cup Series tour, continuing his career as an owner-driver behind the wheel of a car bearing the #52, just as he had for virtually all of his Cup starts. Unfortunately, like many other owner-drivers of his time, Means struggled to stay competitive. A top-five finish eluded him - Means’ best career finish came on May 1, 1983, when he rallied from the 41st starting spot to finish 7th in the Winston 500 at Talladega, Alabama. On September 13, 1987, Means scored his seventeenth and final top-ten finish when he came home 9th in the Wrangler Jeans Indigo 400 at Richmond, Virginia - his first Top Ten in nearly four years. A month later on October 11, Means was given a chance to drive the Rick Hendrick-owned #25 vacated by the ailing Tim Richmond. With the #25 switched to #52 for the race, Means qualified an impressive 5th for the Oakwood Homes 500, but was taken out in a four-car crash after 20 laps, leaving him 40th out of 42 starters. That crash had a profound effect on a young Dale Earnhardt, Jr., a lifetime Means fan.
In 1988, things were looking up for Means. Eureka Vacuum Cleaners, which came on as Means’ primary sponsor late in the 1987 season, signed on for a full season in 1988. Though he began the year with a decent 25th-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500, Means’ first last-place finish of the year came just three races later in the Motorcraft Quality Parts 500 in Hampton, Georgia. During the March 20 race, Means’ #52 Pontiac lost the engine after three laps.
Means’ second finish came two races later in Bristol, Tennessee on April 10 when he crashed after twenty-six laps of the Valleydale Meats 500. June 12 saw Means become the final NASCAR river to finish last on the road course in Riverside, California when his #52 blew the engine five laps into the Budweiser 400. The Riverside International Raceway was closed the next year and replaced on the 1989 schedule by the Sears Point International Raceway in Sonoma, California. Means’ fourth finish of 1988 came in Concord, North Carolina on October 9, one year after his crash driving Tim Richmond’s car the year before. In 1988, Means’ Pontiac lost the engine after eight laps.
One week after the Charlotte race, Means took over for Benny Parsons as driver of the #90 Junie Donlavey entry while Parsons worked as a pit reporter during the broadcast. By season’s end, Parsons would retire from the sport, joining fellow Daytona 500 winners Cale Yarborough and, as it turned out, Bobby Allison. Allison was critically injured June 19 in a terrifying opening-lap crash with Jocko Maggiacomo at Long Pond, Pennsylvania when Allison cut a tire and slid into Maggiacomo’s path. Both cars finished in the final two spots with Maggiacomo scoring his second career last-place finish.
Means finished the 1988 season 30th in points, saddled by three DNQs and thirteen DNFs.
Means continued to race through the 1993 season, thanks in no small part to another big-name sponsor - Alka-Seltzer - which put its decals on his #52 from 1989 through 1991. When sponsorship dried up in 1992, Means fielded his own car in addition to one of the first “start-and-park” teams of NASCAR’s modern era with John McFadden and Graham Taylor driving his backup cars. The “start-and-park” team allowed Means to fund a move from Pontiac to Ford in late 1992, but Means made only 18 races in 1993, a career low. His 455th and final start as a driver came at Rockingham, North Carolina on October 24, 1993, where he led a lap and finished 27th in #52.
Means continued as a Cup Series owner for a couple seasons, then started a Busch Series team in 2001 that remained in the series until 2021. Then in 2012, a Jimmy Means-prepared car qualified for its first Cup Series race since Gary Bradberry’s run at Hampton, Georgia on November 13, 1994. Under the banner of Hamilton-Means Racing, Mike Skinner qualified the #52 CrusaderStaffing.com Toyota 35th for the Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington, South Carolina. Skinner, the 2005 LASTCAR Cup Series Champion, finished 41st in the 43-car field.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Two years before his upset victory in the Daytona 500, Derrike Cope picked up his first Cup Series last-place finish at Richmond, Virginia on February 21, 1988, making him the final driver to finish last on Richmond’s old half-mile fairgrounds configuration. Cope’s #68 Purolator Filters Ford crashed out of the event after 47 laps. It was the first of Cope’s twenty-six last-place finishes in Cup Series competition, which as of this writing stands third all-time behind J.D. McDuffie and Joe Nemechek.
Another future Daytona 500 winner, second-generation racer Dale Jarrett, scored his first last-place finish in the 1988 season. Jarrett’s came May 29 in the Coca-Cola 600 in Concord, North Carolina during his lone start for 1966 LASTCAR Cup Series Champion Buddy Arrington. Jarrett’s #67 Raven Boats Chevrolet lost the engine after 27 laps. Jarrett would move to the Wood Brothers in 1990 and score his first career Cup Series win at Brooklyn, Michigan the next year. The first of three Daytona 500 victories came in 1993, his second season driving for all-star football coach Joe Gibbs.
Brett Bodine scored his first last-place finish as well, his coming in the July 4 running of the Pepsi Firecracker 400 in Daytona Beach, Florida. Bodine, running his first full season for owner Bud Moore, was involved in a multi-car crash in his #15 Ford after the opening lap that also involved Derrike Cope, Alan Kulwicki, and Cale Yarborough. On November 6, 299 laps before Alan Kulwicki scored his first career Cup Series win and did his trademark “Polish Victory Lap” in the inaugural Checker 500 in Avondale, Arizona, Bodine also became the first last-place finisher of the event when his #15 Crisco Ford lost the engine after 13 laps.
An interesting postscript to the 1988 season is the last-place finish of Rodney Combs in the October 23 running of the AC Delco 500 in Rockingham, North Carolina. Combs’ #22 Chevrolet was listed as a “research and development car” for Richard Childress which Combs parked after the first four laps.
The 1988 season also began and ended with the same team finishing last - the #97 Tom Winkle-owned AC Spark Plug Buick. Morgan Shepherd trailed the season-opening Daytona 500 on February 14 when engine failure stopped him after 11 laps while on November 20, Tommy Ellis blew the transmission after two laps of the Atlanta Journal 500 in Hampton, Georgia.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Jimmy Means (4)
2nd) Richard Petty (3)
3rd) Brett Bodine, Rodney Combs, Derrike Cope, Dale Jarrett (2)
4th) Eddie Bierschwale, Tommy Ellis, Lee Faulk, Harry Gant, Jocko Maggiacomo, Brad Noffsinger, Ken Ragan, Joe Ruttman, Greg Sacks, Bob Schacht, Morgan Shepherd, Lake Speed, Michael Waltrip, Rick Wilson (1)
