SEASON IN REVIEW
Phoenix, Arizona driver Michael McDowell picked up his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 2011, scoring seven last-place finishes in thirty-two races during a thirty-six-race season. McDowell and runner-up J.J. Yeley were tied with six last-place finishes apiece heading into the season finale at Homestead, Florida on November 20. Although Kurt Busch’s infamous mechanical failure nearly scored Busch his third last-place finish at the Homestead track, he returned to log laps after McDowell parked, giving McDowell his seventh last-place finish.
McDowell was competing in his fourth season on the Cup Series tour. He started his career in 2008, running twenty races in Michael Waltrip Racing’s #00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota. His best finish of the year was a 20th-place finish at Richmond, Virginia on September 7, 2008, but he was released from the team three weeks later following a DNQ at Kansas City, Kansas.
The next year, McDowell became one of many “start-and-park” drivers on the tour. He made just eight starts in 2009 as the driver of Tommy Baldwin’s #36 Wave Energy Drink Toyota, never finishing better than 38th in those races and finishing last at Homestead, Florida. He started the 2010 season debuting the second #55 team for PRISM Motorsports team, finishing last four more times after he raced his way into the Daytona 500 field, then moved to the #46 Cash America Dodges and Chevrolets owned by Dusty Whitney to finish last at Loudon, New Hampshire on September 19, 2010. After failing to qualify for four of the last five races of the season, however, McDowell and Whitney separated.
In 2011, McDowell returned to drive for Phil Parsons in the #66, but the PRISM Motorsports team now raced under the new name HP Racing, LLC while PRISM’s #55 team was disbanded. Functionally, the team remained the same “start-and-park” organization for every race but Martinsville, Virginia and Sonoma, California, where McDowell drove extremely aggressively en route to finishes of 32nd and 30th, respectively.
McDowell’s first two last-place finishes of 2011 came in consecutive races, starting at Bristol, Tennessee on March 20, where his #66 HP Racing Toyota lost its brakes after 35 laps, and followed up March 27 in Fontana, California with an electrical failure after 32 laps. The next two finishes also happened in consecutive races five races later: in Darlington, South Carolina on May 7, where a vibration stopped him seven laps in, and in Dover, Delaware on May 15, where he led two laps before electrical problems stopped him at 45 laps. He next finished last at Brooklyn, Michigan on June 19, where electrical problems were again to blame after 28 laps. This was followed twelve races later in Joliet, Illinois on September 19 with a brake problem knocking him out after 25 laps. Finally, the tiebreaking finish came in the season finale in Homestead, Florida on November 20, where the driveshaft gave out after thirteen laps.
In all, McDowell scored 29 DNFs in 32 starts, finishing 36th in points. But there was one bright spot late in the season. Following his deliberate wrecking of Ron Hornaday, Jr. in the Truck Series race earlier that weekend, Kyle Busch was suspended from the November 6 running of the Dickies 500 at Fort Worth, Texas. McDowell, one of the drivers for Joe Gibbs Racing’s Nationwide Series team, was tabbed as his replacement. McDowell finished the race three laps down in 33rd while Josh Wise parked his #66 after 23 laps, securing a 40th-place finish.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
The 2009 LASTCAR Cup Series Champion Dave Blaney suffered a bad case of kidney stones the weekend of the AdvoCare 500 in Hampton, Georgia on September 6 and traded rides with 2005 LASTCAR Cup Series Champion Mike Skinner for the race. This allowed Blaney to park Skinner’s #60 Big Red Chevrolet after two laps, finishing last for the only time that season. Skinner came home 27th in Blaney’s #36 Collective Soul / Golden Corral Chevrolet.
Kevin Conway, the 2010 NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year, became the first Cup Series driver to sweep both last-place finishes at Talladega, Alabama. In both races, Conway drove the #97 ExtenZe Toyota fielded by NEMCO Motorsports. On April 17, Conway fell out after the opening lap with electrical problems. On October 23, a vibration was to blame after two laps. In between, Conway also finished last July 2 in Daytona Beach, Florida, where rear gear problems were the cause of another exit after Lap 1. Conway was also the only first-time last-placer in 2011, tying the record for fewest first-time last-placers set in 1997.
Front Row Motorsports started its own “start-and-park” team in time for the September 25 race in Loudon, New Hampshire. From there through the end of the season, the #55 team scored eight of the season’s seventeen remaining last-place finishes, including four of runner-up J.J. Yeley’s six last-place runs that season. Yeley’s other two last-place finishes came in Whitney Motorsports’ #46 at the Daytona 500 on February 20 and Richmond, Virginia on April 30.
Overall, the year’s thirty-six last-place finishes were divided among ten cars belonging to just seven teams: HP Racing, LLC’s #66 (seven last-place finishes), NEMCO’s #87 and #97 (seven combined), Front Row Motorsports’ #55 (eight), Germain Racing’s #60 (six), Whitney Motorsports’ #46 and #81 (four combined), Robby Gordon Motorsports’ #7 and #77 (three combined), and MaxQ Motorsports’ #37 (one). In fact, just thirteen different drivers finished last over the 36 races in 2011, the fewest since NASCAR’s first season in 1949 when seven drivers trailed the only eight races run that year.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Michael McDowell (7)
2nd) J.J. Yeley (6)
3rd) Mike Skinner (5)
4th) Kevin Conway, Joe Nemechek (4)
5th) Travis Kvapil (3)
6th) Robby Gordon (2)
7th) Dave Blaney, Landon Cassill, Jeff Green, P.J. Jones, Scott Riggs, Scott Speed (1)
