PHOTO: Mike Dowd
SEASON IN REVIEW
Spartanburg, South Carolina driver Larry Pearson scored his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 1991, scoring three last-place finishes in eleven starts during a twenty-nine-race season. Pearson edged 56-year-old veteran James Hylton for the title in LASTCAR’s second consecutive bottom-ten tiebreaker, 7-4.
Pearson was competing in his sixth and final Cup Series season. In forty-six previous starts, his best Cup finish was 6th, which occurred at both Concord, North Carolina in 1986 and Richmond, Virginia in 1989 while driving the #16 Chattanooga Chew machine owned by his father, three-time NASCAR Cup Series Champion David Pearson. The 1989 finish was one of just two Top Tens during a difficult rookie campaign where Pearson finished just 23rd in points. It was a frustrating turn of events, as Pearson had scored two NASCAR Busch Grand National Series titles and thirteen series wins by that point.
Pearson made his final start for his father’s team at Hampton, Georgia on March 18, 1990, when he finished 34th in a field of 40. Following a DNQ at Bristol and a last-place finish during a one-off for Bill Edwards in an unsponsored #88 Pontiac at Concord, North Carolina on May 27, Pearson moved to a brand-new team, the #41 Chevrolet owned by Larry Hedrick. Pearson and Hedrick ended their 1990 on a high note with four finishes of 19th or better in their final four starts. Optimism was high for 1991, when Kellogg’s Corn Flakes would come on board as sponsor. Unfortunately, Pearson only made eleven starts in 1991, suffering three DNQs and seven DNFs with all but a 14th and 17th-place finish being outside the Top Twenty.
The first two of Pearson’s three last-place finishes in 1991 came in his first two starts of the year. One came at Talladega, Alabama on May 6, where Pearson was taken out in a two-car crash including Richard Petty after just two laps. The next in the May 26 running of the Coca-Cola 600 in Concord, North Carolina occurred when his #41 overheated after twelve laps. Pearson’s third finish came during the first-ever night race at Richmond, Virginia twelve races after when he crashed once more, this time after nine laps. A 14th-place finish at Hampton, Georgia on November 17 proved to be Pearson’s 57th and final Cup Series start. Pearson attempted to qualify for the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 in 1997 driving Bud Moore’s unsponsored #15, but was unable to make either race.
Following his 37th-place finish in the 1991 point standings, Pearson returned to the NASCAR Busch Grand National Series in 1993. He eventually competed in 259 races through 1999, picking up another two victories in 1995. On March 20, 2010, Pearson was involved in a terrifying crash during the Scotts EZ Seed Shootout at Bristol, Tennessee, a celebrity race among several former NASCAR drivers. Pearson blew a tire and was hit in the door by Charlie Glotzbach. The most recent reports indicate he is still recovering from several broken bones suffered in the wreck.
Larry Hedrick’s team would continue to race its #41 Chevrolets through the early part of the 2000 season. Although the team never won a Cup Series race, it became very competitive from 1995 through 1997, when they obtained sponsorship from Kodiak and drivers Ricky Craven and Steve Grissom. Craven was declared the 1995 Rookie of the Year, scoring three Top Fives and nine Top Tens over two seasons. Grissom started outside-pole for the 1997 Daytona 500 and scored three Top Fives and six Top Tens of his own later that season.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Wally Dallenbach, Jr. scored his first Cup Series last-place finish in 1991 when his #90 Orkin Pest Control Ford was involved in a crash after two laps. Dallenbach was driving for Junie Donlavey at the time, but was soon recruited by Jack Roush to drive his new second team, #16. Dallenbach competed in 226 Cup starts through the first part of the 2001 season before he turned his focus to becoming a television analyst for NBC and, later, TNT.
Ernie Irvan, 1991's Daytona 500 winner, scored his own first last-place finish that season when his #4 Kodak Film Chevrolet started 6th at North Wilkesboro, North Carolina on September 29th, then crashed out after 164 laps. That was the same race where Dale Earnhardt took the victory, ending polesitter Harry Gant’s bid at a fifth consecutive Cup Series victory. Irvan would go on to win fifteen Cup Series races in 313 starts, a career curtailed twice by serious accidents he suffered at Brooklyn, Michigan in 1994 and 1999.
In the October 20 running of the AC Delco 500 at Rockingham, North Carolina, James Hylton picked up the final last-place finish for Buick when his #48 Josiah Buick lost the engine after seven laps. Buicks had raced in NASCAR since the inaugural season in 1949, but the manufacturer pulled their support in 1991. Interestingly, Hylton’s #48 he raced that day was an old late-1980s Buick LeSabre that ran in NASCAR before the manufacturer unveiled the sleeker 1988 Buick Regal team drivers raced those final four seasons.
On November 3, Kenny Wallace scored his first last-place finish in his fifth Cup Series start, the Pyroil 500 at the Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale, Arizona. Wallace’s #24 Team III Racing Pontiac suffered steering problems and completed just the opening lap. The race saw Wallace join brothers Rusty and Mike (Mike driving 1988 LASTCAR Cup Series Champion Jimmy Means’ #52 Pontiac), making them the first three brothers to race together in the same Cup Series race since Dub, Sherman, and Layman Utsman raced each other at Bristol, Tennessee in 1961. Curiously, nearly the same thing happened at Brooklyn, Michigan on August 20, 2000, when Dale Earnhardt raced against his sons Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Kerry Earnhardt. That day, Kerry’s #71 RealTree Camouflage Chevrolet finished last due to a single-car crash after five laps.
August 11, 1991 was the day J.D. McDuffie scored the 32nd and final last-place finish in his 653rd NASCAR Cup Series start. McDuffie was killed following a crash involving his #70 L.C. Whitford Racing Pontiac and the #52 Alka-Seltzer Pontiac of Jimmy Means on the fifth lap of the Budweiser at the Glen in Watkins Glen, New York.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) James Hylton [4 B5s, 4 B10s], Larry Pearson [4 B5s, 7 B10s] (3)
2nd) Lake Speed (2)
3rd) Davey Allison, Gary Balough, Andy Belmont, Derrike Cope, Wally Dallenbach, Jr., Mickey Gibbs, Andy Hillenburg, Ernie Irvan, Dale Jarrett, Terry Labonte, Rick Mast, J.D. McDuffie, Greg Sacks, Dorsey Schroeder, R.K. Smith, Stanley Smith, Dick Trickle, Kenny Wallace, Rusty Wallace, Michael Waltrip, Rick Wilson (1)
