PHOTO: Brock Beard
SEASON IN REVIEW
Hartford, Ohio driver Dave Blaney scored his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 2009, scoring eight last-place finishes in thirty starts during a thirty-six-race season. In doing so, Blaney broke the single-season last-place record set by Derrike Cope just three years earlier.
Blaney was competing in his twelfth season on the Cup Series tour. Three years before his 1995 Sprint Car World of Outlaws Championship, at the age of 29, Blaney made his Cup debut on October 25, 1992 in the AC Delco 500 at Rockingham, North Carolina. That day, Blaney debuted the Hover Motorsports team that would make fifteen more Cup starts in 1994, 1995, and 2004. Blaney’s #80 Daffron’s Body Shop Pontiac, which finished 31st that day, was purchased from the defunct Team III Racing that campaigned an unsponsored #24 one year before Jeff Gordon’s Cup debut.
Blaney did not race in Cup again until a five-race span in 1999, when he was tabbed as driver of Bill Davis Racing’s second team, the #93 Amoco Pontiac. Though he finished no better than 23rd in those races, he qualified 4th and 7th in the last two events at Homestead, Florida and Hampton, Georgia, leading into his first full season in the #93 in 2000. Blaney’s rookie season took a similar track, finishing 31st in points, but this time scoring his first two top-ten finishes in the final weeks of the season. A switch to Dodge in 2001 brought even better results for the #93 team. That year, he improved to 22nd in points with six more Top Tens, improving his career-best finish to 6th place in three races that year. He also nearly won both the 2001 races in Hampton, Georgia, leading a combined 86 laps before mechanical woes took him out of both events.
For the next two years, Blaney drove for Doug Bawel in the #77 Jasper Engines and Transmissions Ford, replacing Robert Pressley. In 2002, he improved to a career-best 19th in the final point standings after five top-ten finishes. In 2003, he scored his first career pole at Rockingham, North Carolina for the Subway 400 on February 23, then scored a career-best 3rd-place finish at Darlington, South Carolina on March 16. That day, in the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400, Blaney was catching leaders Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch as they wrecked each other across the stripe with Craven taking the win. At the end of 2003, Blaney still finished just 28th in points, and he was replaced by rookie Brendan Gaughan at the end of the season.
In 2004, Blaney drove for four different teams. He started the year by returning to Bill Davis Racing for six races in the team’s new #23 Dodge, leading three laps of the Budweiser Shootout in Daytona Beach, Florida on February 7, 2004, then finishing 11th in two points races at Hampton, Georgia and Fort Worth, Texas. He gave owner Jim Smith’s Ultra Motorsports its final Cup start at Richmond, Virginia on May 15, drove Jack Roush’s #99 Ford late in the year, and made eight more races in Richard Childress’ #30 America Online Chevrolet following the departure of struggling rookie Johnny Sauter.
From 2005 through 2008, Blaney rejoined two of his former car owners. First, in 2005, he debuted Childress’ new #07 Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet and finished 26th in points with a pair of top-ten finishes before ceding the ride to 2006 rookie Clint Bowyer. In 2006, Blaney signed up with Bill Davis Racing once more, this time as driver of the team’s flagship #22 Caterpillar Dodge, a team which made the move to Toyota in 2007. Over those three seasons, Blaney missed just four races and scored two more Top Fives and eight more Top Tens. Despite a 31st-place finish in the 2007 points, that year was one of Blaney’s best as he won the pole at Loudon, New Hampshire on July 1, 2007, then equaled his best-career finish of 3rd in the first “Car of Tomorrow” race at Talladega, Alabama on October 7, following teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson across the finish line.
Unfortunately, Bill Davis Racing closed its shop after the 2008 season, one of many teams that either folded up or merged with others during the start of a nationwide recession. Entering the 2009 season, several start-up teams were formed, and the NASCAR garage began to resemble that from 2004. This time, nearly all of the new teams ran Toyotas made available from the closings of Bill Davis Racing and Hall of Fame Racing, the latter merged with Yates Racing in 2009.
Some of Bill Davis’ Toyotas were bought up by Gunselman Motorsports, whose #64 Toyotas driven by Todd Bodine still carried the black-and-yellow graphics from Blaney’s Caterpillar cars. Crew chief Tommy Baldwin, Jr. started Tommy Baldwin Racing, putting Scott Riggs in his white #36 Toyotas. Jeremy Mayfield founded Mayfield Motorsports, Incorporated and scored sponsorship from All-Sport on his #41 Toyotas. Joe Nemechek brought back NEMCO Motorsports, his blue-and-gold #87 cars running Toyota power.
Dave Blaney joined yet another team in this group, PRISM Motorsports, started by 1989 LASTCAR Cup Series Champion Phil Parsons.
For its first season, PRISM campaigned #66 Toyotas which were year-old chasses from Michael Waltrip Racing. Terry Labonte got PRISM into the Daytona 500 with sponsorship from Window World and finished 24th. However, like Parsons’ MSRP Motorsports team in the Nationwide Series, PRISM would largely be a “start-and-park” team with Blaney making the majority of those races. Following his debut with PRISM at Fontana, California on February 22, 2009, Blaney scored his first last-place finish of the year in the Food City 500 at Bristol, Tennessee on March 22. Blaney qualified 8th for that race and was in the Top 5 on Lap 34 when John Andretti spun him in Turn Four. Though the car was undamaged, Blaney’s #66 Hyde Park Storage Suites Toyota parked after 33 laps with steering woes as the listed cause.
Blaney’s next last-place finish took place two races later in Fort Worth, Texas on April 5, where his #66 fell out with brake problems after 48 laps. The next was three races later at Richmond, Virginia on May 2, where he backed into the Turn Four wall on Lap 8. Eight races later, Blaney finished last in two consecutive races: first on July 4 in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona Beach, Florida, where he overheated after two laps, and then on July 11 in Joliet, Illinois, where the engine let go after ten laps. The next three last-place finishes also came in consecutive races, starting at Bristol, Tennessee on August 22, where he again qualified a strong 4th only to slap the wall and fall out after eight laps. This finish was followed by electrical problems nineteen laps into the September 6 race in Hampton, Georgia and brake woes thirty-six laps into the September 12 race at Richmond, Virginia.
By season’s end, Blaney scored twenty-nine DNFs, four DNQs, and finished 41st in points. He became the first Cup Series driver to sweep both last-place finishes at Richmond since Harry Gant in 1990 and the first to sweep both at Bristol since Ronnie Thomas in 1987.
Following the 2009 season, Blaney made just nineteen more starts for PRISM in 2010 before alternating between Front Row Motorsports as driver of the #38 A&W All American Food Ford and Tommy Baldwin Racing’s largely-unsponsored #36 Chevrolet. In 2011, Blaney signed on to stay with Baldwin, beginning a tumultuous comeback. Not only did Blaney race Baldwin’s #36 into the field for the Daytona 500, but he nearly won it, leading three laps before a late crash left him 26th. From there, the team acquired enough funding to run the entire race in all but one of his remaining starts. Restaurant chain Golden Corral was the most enthusiastic, offering free meals for children if Blaney finished in the Top Ten. At Talladega, Alabama on October 23, 2011, Blaney pulled through with a stunning 3rd-place finish, his second in five runnings of the race.
In 2012, Blaney’s #36 was again put back to “start-and-park” status for most of the season as his sponsorship was moved to Baldwin’s #10, which was added to the roster to keep part-time driver Danica Patrick in the Top 35 in Owner Points. Despite this, Blaney still raced his #36 into the Daytona 500 field, giving Tommy Baldwin Racing’s #36 a start in all four of the team’s first attempts at The Great American Race.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Then 19-year-old rookie Joey Logano scored his first last-place finish in his fourth career start, the Daytona 500 in Daytona Beach, Florida on February 15. Along with a crash in the Budweiser Shootout the week before, Logano became the first driver to finish last in the Shootout and the 500 in the same year. Logano got the ride in the #20 Home Depot Toyota replacing Tony Stewart, who formed Stewart-Haas Racing over the offseason. Logano won his first race at Loudon, New Hampshire on September 20 en route to becoming Rookie of the Year.
Matt Kenseth won the first two races of the 2009 season, then finished last following an engine failure after six laps of the Shelby 427 in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was Kenseth’s first last-place finish since the end of his 2003 NASCAR Cup Series Championship season, the Ford 400 in Homestead, Florida on November 16, 2003.
All these storylines were a part of LASTCAR’s first season. The website came together over the 2008-2009 offseason.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Dave Blaney (8)
2nd) Tony Raines (5)
3rd) Joe Nemechek (4)
4th) Mike Bliss (3)
5th) Patrick Carpentier, David Gilliland, Bobby Labonte (2)
6th) Tony Ave, Todd Bodine, P.J. Jones, Matt Kenseth, Travis Kvapil, Joey Logano, Mark Martin, Michael McDowell, Mike Skinner, Mike Wallace (1)
