SEASON IN REVIEW
Phoenix, Arizona driver Michael McDowell picked up his third LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 2013, scoring eight last-place finishes in thirty-three starts during a thirty-six-race season. In doing so, McDowell became the first driver ever to score three consecutive LASTCAR Cup Series Championships. McDowell’s eight finishes tied the Cup Series record for most last-place runs in a single season, set in 2009 by Dave Blaney.
Unlike his last two titles, which were settled in the season finale at Homestead, McDowell locked-up his title with two races to go at Texas on November 3. It was a surprising turn of events in a season where McDowell was out of the LASTCAR lead for most of the season. From Darlington on May 14 through Chicagoland on September 15, that mark was held by Mike Bliss and the Humphrey-Smith Motorsports team. This was the same team that, with Reed Sorenson in 2012, forced McDowell into a bottom-ten tiebreaker at Homestead.
In 2013, Humphrey-Smith scaled back from two cars to just one white #19 Toyota and ran fifteen of the season’s first twenty-two races. In that span, Mike Bliss scored five last-place finishes, the last of which coming at New Hampshire on July 14. Nationwide Series driver Alex Kennedy competed in the #19 team’s only two full-race runs on the road courses, but after Kennedy’s 29th-place run at Watkins Glen on August 11, the team DNQ’d at Bristol and Richmond, withdrew from Atlanta, and didn’t attempt the rest of the season. This allowed McDowell to run virtually unopposed for the LASTCAR title, scoring five of the season’s final eleven last-place finishes.
Another surprising element to McDowell’s title run is that he and the #98 Phil Parsons Racing team turned in a handful of solid finishes in 2013. His year began with a stunning 9th-place finish in the Daytona 500 on February 24, setting a career-best finish for both driver and team. He also finished 15th at Talladega on October 20, narrowly avoiding a last-lap crash, and managed a 26th-place finish at Martinsville on October 27 despite persistent brake problems.
However, when the Parsons team did not have a car ready for McDowell for the March 3 race at Phoenix, the team was forced to withdraw just one week after their Daytona 500 run, and when they returned at Las Vegas on March 10, McDowell scored his first last-place run of the season when his #98 Ambient Edge HVAC Ford had a vibration after 21 laps. The next two came three rounds later in consecutive races: at Martinsville on April 7 when the brakes went out on his #98 Phil Parsons Racing Ford after 26 laps, and at Texas on April 13 when his car overheated after 44 laps. In that Texas race, McDowell then drove in relief of an ailing Bobby Labonte in the #47 Bush’s Beans Toyota, but then lost the engine after 138 laps and finished just ahead of his own car.
McDowell did not finish last again for another nineteen races, but then scored three of the next four, all of them due to brake failure. The streak began at Richmond on September 7 when his #98 Phil Parsons Racing Ford fell out after 76 laps, then continued the next week at Chicagoland where he exited after 29 laps. The Chicagoland finish was not only McDowell’s fourth last-place run at the Joliet, Illinois track, but also gave Ford its 900th last-place finish across NASCAR’s top three divisions. His sixth finish of the year, his third out of four races, came at Dover on September 29, where his unsponsored machine managed 107 of 400 laps, but still trailed the field. He then finished the season by finishing last in two of the final three races: he swept the season at Texas on November 3 when he led a lap before a vibration stopped his #98 after 27 laps, then rounded out the year with his third last-place finish at Homestead after brake trouble stopped his November 17 run 63 laps into the event.
The Homestead race was to be McDowell’s final start for Phil Parsons’ team. After four years of driving for PRISM Motorsports, HP Racing LLC, and Phil Parsons Racing, McDowell was set to drive for the #95 Leavine Family Racing team in 2014, a car McDowell raced to a 14th-place finish in the Sprint Showdown at Charlotte on May 18. The #95 scored three last-place runs in 2013 with drivers Scott Speed and Scott Riggs.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
The #19 Humphrey-Smith Motorsports team trailed Parsons’ #98 by two finishes in the LASTCAR Owner’s Standings with a season total of six finishes. The sixth finish was shrouded in tragedy. On June 9, Nationwide Series regular Jason Leffler finished last at Pocono in a one-off driving the #19 Toyota, exiting after eight laps with transmission trouble. Since losing his NASCAR Truck Series ride with Kyle Busch Motorsports in early 2012, Leffler had returned to his roots, running 410 sprint cars on local dirt tracks. It was in one such car that on June 12, just three days after his Pocono start, Leffler was killed in a vicious wreck at Bridgehampton, New Jersey. He was 37 years old.
Just one month earlier, the 2013 season endured another tragedy when on May 16, short track legend and Cup Series veteran Dick Trickle died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Boger City, North Carolina. Trickle, the 1989 NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year and 1990 winner of the Winston Open at Charlotte, made 303 Cup Series starts and 158 Busch Series starts. Though he only won twice in the Busch Series, the last coming the year he won the 1998 LASTCAR Busch Series Championship, Trickle was perhaps the winningest driver in American short track history with at least 1,200 feature wins to his name. He was 71 years old.
For the first time since September 7, 2008, all 43 cars finished a Cup Series race under power. That race was at Indianapolis on July 28, where last-place finisher Jeff Burton finished fifty laps down in his #31 Caterpillar Chevrolet. Burton was one of three last-place finishers in 2013 who scored their first last-place finishes in Cup since 2007, joining Paul Menard, who lost the engine on his #27 Rheem / Menards Chevrolet at Daytona on July 6, and David Reutimann, who lost his own engine at Watkins Glen on August 11 behind the wheel of the #83 Burger King Toyota. On August 4, Denny Hamlin scored his first last-place finish since 2010 at one of his best tracks when he crashed his #11 FedEx Office Toyota after 14 laps.
Just one driver scored their first Cup Series last-place finish in 2013, equaling the record set in 1997. That driver was Danica Patrick, who started the year with a pole in the Daytona 500 and ended it losing Rookie of the Year to her boyfriend Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. Patrick scored her first last-place finish at Kansas on October 6 when her #10 GoDaddy.com Breast Cancer Awareness Chevrolet lost control in the first corner on the first lap and crashed, setting off a multi-car wreck. Patrick’s car sustained significant damage to the front end, and she joined Bobby Labonte at Sonoma on June 23 as two drivers to finish last in a Cup race without completing a lap. Patrick became just the third female last-place finisher of a Cup Series race. In 1950, Louise Smith was involved in a wreck in her #94 1949 Ford on the opening lap of the season opener on the Daytona Beach-Road Course. In 1990, Terri O’Connell finished last in her only Cup start at Rockingham when her #91 Crossroads City of Corinth Ford was flagged off the track after ten laps. At the time of the Rockingham finish, O’Connell was J.T. Hayes, a man who had sex reassignment surgery four years after the finish.
Over the offseason, Joe Nemechek’s team merged with Jay Robinson Racing, whose #49 Cup team closed its doors the previous year. As a result, Nemechek had his best season since he brought NEMCO Motorsports back to the Cup Series in 2009. He qualified for thirty-five of the season’s thirty-six races and failed to finish just fifteen of them, his fewest DNFs since 2008. He also scored just two last-place finishes in 2013, tying last year’s mark for his lowest since 2007. Both finishes were historically significant. The first came in the Daytona 500 on February 24 when the engine let go on his #87 MaddiesPlaceRocks.com / D.A.B. Constructors Toyota. This finish made Nemechek the first driver to finish last in the Daytona 500 more than twice (joining 1995 and 2010). The other came at Bristol on August 24 when his #87 Greer Roofing Toyota lost the engine after the opening lap. That finish was Nemechek’s 32nd in Cup competition, tying him with the late J.D. McDuffie for the most last-place finishes in Cup Series history. Nemechek would break McDuffie’s record at Martinsville on March 30, 2014.
Coming into 2013, Morgan Shepherd had not made a Cup Series start since September 17, 2006 at Loudon, one week after his seventeenth and most recent Cup Series last-place finish at Richmond. Then on July 14, at age 71, Shepherd returned to the series in the #52 SupportMilitary.org Toyota owned by Brian Keselowski. Shepherd finished 41st in the race, just ahead of Michael McDowell and Mike Bliss, with a vibration as the cause after 92 laps. Shepherd also finished last once in the Nationwide Series in 2013 when his #89 Racing With Jesus Dodge broke the rear gear after 21 laps of the July 5 race at Daytona.
The year 2013 also saw the retirement from Cup racing of “Super K,” Kenny Schrader, following a 34th-place finish in the season finale at Homestead on November 17. Schrader scored four wins in 763 Cup series starts, another two in 116 Nationwide Series starts, and one in 101 Truck Series starts. In terms of last-place finishes, Schrader scored seven in Cup, three in Nationwide, and four in Trucks. He also became the oldest winner in ARCA Series competition with a pair of 2013 wins at Toledo and on the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds dirt track. Though he retired from Cup, he still planned to compete in other forms of racing.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Michael McDowell (8)
2nd) Mike Bliss (5)
3rd) Scott Riggs (4)
4th) Bobby Labonte, Joe Nemechek, Tony Raines, Scott Speed, J.J. Yeley (2)
5th) Trevor Bayne, Dave Blaney, Jeff Burton, Denny Hamlin, Jason Leffler, Paul Menard, Danica Patrick, David Ragan, David Reutimann (1)
