PHOTO: McDonald’s Winston Cup Page
SEASON IN REVIEW
Hickory, North Carolina driver Andy Houston scored his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 2001, scoring three last-place finishes in seventeen starts during a thirty-six-race season. Houston won a tight bottom-five tiebreaker over Kyle Petty, 8-7.
Houston was competing in his second season on the Cup Series tour, following a five-race stint in 2000. A four-year veteran of the NASCAR Truck Series with three wins and a 3rd-place finish in the 2000 series points, Houston was tabbed to be the teammate to Ricky Craven at Cal Wells’ PPI Motorsports. Houston would carry sponsorship from McDonald’s on his #96, filling a role left open by Bill Elliott after he sold his McDonald’s-sponsored team in 2000 to drive for the new Dodge team at Evernham Motorsports. Entering 2001, Houston was set to take part in the most competitive Rookie of the Year class since 1994, joining fellow Truck Series standouts Ron Hornaday and Kurt Busch, plus developing Busch Series talents Casey Atwood and Jason Leffler.
However, while this group of rookies made all but irrelevant after the meteoric rise of Kevin Harvick early in the season, Houston ended up struggling more than most, scoring eight DNQs and nine DNFs, including three last-place finishes. Houston’s first two last-place finishes came in consecutive races - the Pepsi 400 at Daytona Beach, Florida on July 7 - the night Dale Earnhardt, Jr. scored an emotional win at the scene of his father’s death less than five months earlier - when he qualified a season-best 6th only to crash after 86 laps, followed by the Tropicana 400 on July 15, the inaugural race at the Chicagloand Speedway in Joliet, Illinois, where the engine let go after three laps. The third finish came just three races after that in the August 5 running of the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, where he crashed once more after completing just the opening lap.
Houston continued to race for another two months before the team folded-up following his 18th-place finish in his 22nd start, the inaugural Protection One 400 at the Kansas Speedway on September 30. Less than a month later, teammate Ricky Craven, now driving for a single-car team, scored his first of two Cup Series victories at Martinsville, Virginia. Houston never raced in Cup again, but competed in Busch and Truck Series competition through 2005. He is now employed as a spotter for various NASCAR teams.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Like Houston, nearly all of the 2001 Rookie of the Year class finished last for the first time that season with the significant exception of Kevin Harvick, who as of January 2013 has yet to finish last in a single Cup Series points race: Kurt Busch scored his first last-place finish at Brooklyn, Michigan on June 10 when his #97 Sharpie / Rubbermaid Ford crashed after completing 16 laps of the K-Mart 400. Jason Leffler picked up his first last-place finish in the Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington, South Carolina on September 2 after his #01 Cingular Wireless Dodge overheated after 90 laps. Casey Atwood became the first Cup Series last-place finisher at the Kansas Speedway when on September 30, the day of Andy Houston’s final Cup start, his #19 Dodge Dealers Dodge started fifth only to become involved in a four-car crash on the opening lap of the race.
Although he was not competing for Rookie of the Year, a young college graduate from Purdue named Ryan Newman also scored his first last-place finish on May 27, 2001. Making just his third career start in the Coca-Cola 600 at Concord, North Carolina, Newman and his #02 Alltel Ford blazed to the pole and edged out a comfortable lead in the first ten laps of the race. However, just like in the Winston Open a week earlier, sudden misfortune took him out of the running. While leading on Lap 11, Newman lost control in turn four and backed his car hard into the outside wall, ending his night.
Of these four drivers, only Busch and Newman are still active in the Cup Series. Just three years later, Busch won the 2004 NASCAR Cup Series Championship with the #97 Roush Racing team in the first year of NASCAR’s new “Chase for the Cup” points format.
The year 2001 also saw the return of Dodge to NASCAR Cup Series competition. The first last-place finish for the new Dodge Intrepid came on April 22, the day 2000 LASTCAR Cup Series Champion Bobby Hamilton scored his final Cup Series win in the Talladega 500 at Talladega, Alabama. The last-place finisher that day was polesitter Stacy Compton in the #92 Kodiak Dodge, whose engine let go after 116 laps. It was Dodge’s first last-place finish in a Cup Series race since March 1, 1981, when 1966 LASTCAR Cup Series Champion Buddy Arrington’s #67 Reid Trailer Sales Dodge fell out with engine trouble 34 laps into the Carolina 500 at Rockingham, North Carolina. Curiously, Compton’s crew chief in 2001 was Chad Knaus, who would make his fateful move to rookie Jimmie Johnson’s team in 2002.
Without a doubt, the top story of the 2001 season was the untimely death of Dale Earnhardt after a crash on the final lap of the Daytona 500 on February 18. One week after the crash on February 25, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. scored the second last-place finish of his career on the opening lap of the Dura Lube 400 at Rockingham, North Carolina when he was involved in a five-car crash entering turn four, knocking his #8 Budweiser Chevrolet into the wall in a manner eerily similar to his father’s fatal wreck. Earnhardt, Jr. was uninjured.
Just three cautions flew in the Daytona 500, the first of which coming for Jeff Purvis when he crashed and finished last after completing 47 laps, his first last-place finish since October 5, 1992 at North Wilkesboro, North Carolina in his first Cup Series start since October 5, 1997 at Concord, North Carolina. It was also the first Cup start for Phoenix Racing - the James Finch-owned program that was set to field Neil Bonnett’s Daytona ride in 1994 - since Purvis finished 40th for Finch at Talladega, Alabama on July 28, 1996. Finch returned to Daytona in a year-old car bought from Bill Elliott’s closed team that had so few decals on it that even the headlight graphics were missing, yet Purvis managed to race it into the field during the Gatorade Twin 125s. Purvis and the #51 qualified for all four restrictor-plate races in 2001, and though they were the final starts of Purvis’ 50-race career, Phoenix Racing is still active today, developing James Finch’s son Jake.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Stacy Compton [5 B5s], Andy Houston [8 B5s], Kyle Petty [7 B5s], Rusty Wallace [4 B5s] (3)
2nd) Todd Bodine, Kurt Busch, Ricky Craven, Jason Leffler, Robert Pressley, Michael Waltrip (2)
3rd) Casey Atwood, Brett Bodine, Ward Burton, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Buckshot Jones, Kevin Lepage, Carl Long, Joe Nemechek, Ryan Newman, Steve Park, Jeff Purvis, Jimmy Spencer (1)
