SEASON IN REVIEW
Calera, Alabama driver Hut Stricklin picked up his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 1995, scoring three last-place finishes in twenty-four starts during a thirty-one-race season. Stricklin won a bottom-five tiebreaker over Elton Sawyer, 8-6.
Stricklin was competing in his eighth season on the Cup Series tour, having raced for nine different teams prior to the 1995 season. His best career finish came at Brooklyn, Michigan on June 23, 1991 while driving Bobby Allison’s #12 Raybestos Buick, finishing twelve seconds behind Allison’s son Davey in the Miller Genuine Draft 400. The 1991 season turned out to be the best of his career, resulting in three Top Fives and seven Top Tens with a 16th-place showing in the points. 1994, by contrast, was one of his worst - just a single top-ten finish while driving Travis Carter’s controversial #23 Smokin’ Joe’s Ford sponsored by Camel Cigarettes.
Stricklin entered 1995 without a ride, save for an unsuccessful one-off for owner Jim Wilson where his #78 Equipment Supply Company Ford missed the April 2 race at Bristol, Tennessee. However, during the first seven races of 1995, another team was struggling just as badly - King Racing. King Racing’s previous driver Brett Bodine left the team to buy one of Junior Johnson’s teams and become an owner-driver, leaving a seat open for World of Outlaws legend Steve Kinser to try his hand at stock car racing. The results left much to be desired - Kinser finished no better than 27th in five starts and failed to qualify for two races. This opened the door for Stricklin to take over the #26 Quaker State Ford at Martinsville, Virginia on April 23.
Stricklin succeeded in making all twenty-four of the season’s remaining races, picking up two Top Fives and five Top Tens, plus his only career pole at Rockingham, North Carolina on October 25. Unfortunately, he also picked up nine DNFs and, in the second half of the season, three last-place finishes.
Stricklin’s first last-place run came at Long Pond, Pennsylvania on July 16, where he blew the engine after 38 laps of the Miller Genuine Draft 500. The next occurred three races later in the Bud at the Glen at Watkins Glen, New York, where a broken valve was the cause of his exit after twenty laps. The third came at the scene of his season debut at Martinsville, Virginia, this time the September 24 Goody’s 500 where his brakes gave out after 202 laps.
LASTCAR contender Elton Sawyer’s three last-place finishes occurred during the same ten-race span, but he was unable to score any more Bottom Fives in the final four races of the season.
Stricklin left King Racing at the end of the season and moved to the Stavola Brothers team to drive the #8 Circuit City Ford, replacing Jeff Burton. That season, Stricklin equaled his career-best 2nd-place finish at Darlington, South Carolina on September 1, when he nearly pulled the upset in the Mountain Dew Southern 500 before Jeff Gordon passed him with sixteen laps to go. Stricklin would go on to make 328 Cup Series starts, his final Cup start coming in the Sharpie 500 at Bristol, Tennessee on August 24, 2002 where his #23 Hills Brothers Coffee Dodge finished 38th.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
At the start of the season, 1995 NASCAR Rookie of the Year combatants and Busch Series regulars Robert Pressley and Ricky Craven scored their first last-place finishes in consecutive races. Pressley, tabbed to take over the #33 Skoal Bandit following the retirement of Harry Gant in 1994, finished last at Rockingham, North Carolina on February 26 when he lost the engine after 38 laps. Craven, the new driver of Larry Hedrick’s #41 Kodiak Chevrolet, blew the engine 141 laps into the Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond, Virginia one week later on March 5. Craven would go on to win Rookie of the Year on the heels of four top-ten finishes.
In the Tyson Holly Farms 400 at North Wilkesboro, North Carolina on October 1, Ernie Irvan made his first Cup Series start since his near-fatal wreck at Brooklyn, Michigan just over one year before. Irvan’s #88 Texaco / Havoline Ford finished a strong sixth place behind Mark Martin, ultimately leading to Irvan’s return to full-time competition in 1996. That race at North Wilkesboro marked the first time since Nashville, Tennessee on May 24, 1959 that every driver in the field finished the race under power - last-place driver Jimmy Spencer’s #23 Smokin’ Joes Ford finished ten laps down in 36th.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Elton Sawyer [6 B5s], Hut Stricklin [8 B5s] (3)
2nd) Ricky Craven, Kyle Petty, Darrell Waltrip (2)
3rd) Todd Bodine, Gary Bradberry, Derrike Cope, Ernie Cope, Steve Grissom, Jimmy Hensley, Bobby Hillin, Jr., Bobby Labonte, Terry Labonte, Chad Little, Joe Nemechek, Dan Obrist, Phil Parsons, Robert Pressley, Ricky Rudd, Greg Sacks, Ken Schrader, Jimmy Spencer, Mike Wallace (1)
