SEASON IN REVIEW
Upland, California driver Joe Ruttman picked up his second LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 1986, scoring two last-place finishes in twenty-nine starts in a twenty-nine-race season. Ruttman edged Darrell Waltrip, who struggled in his final season driving for Junior Johnson, by a single bottom-five finish, 5-4. Ruttman also became the first LASTCAR Cup Series Champion to start every race that season.
Ruttman was competing in his tenth season on the Cup Series tour and his first for King Racing. The team, formed by drag racing star Kenny Bernstein, campaigned a #26 Quaker State machine whose paint scheme remained largely unchanged in the team’s ten-year existence. In 1986, the team ran Buicks with future two-time Daytona 500 winning crew chief Larry McReynolds on the pit box.
Ruttman and Bernstein debuted with a 28th-place finish in the Daytona 500, then followed it up the next week at Richmond with Ruttman tying his career-best 2nd-place finish. In that wild February 23 race, Ruttman was involved in the four-car pileup triggered by leaders Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip on the last lap, but somehow got the car straight in time to follow Kyle Petty across the finish line.
Two races after Richmond, Ruttman scored the first of his two last-place finishes when he lost the engine after 33 laps of the Motorcraft 500 in Hampton, Georgia. The other finish would come eight races later in the Budweiser 400 at Riverside, California, another engine failure to blame after five laps.
Ruttman went on to finish 15th in points, scoring another runner-up finish at Martinsville, Virginia on April 27, where he came home one lap behind winner Ricky Rudd. Though he scored five Top Fives and fourteen Top Tens that season, Ruttman lost his ride to Morgan Shepherd in 1987. Ruttman did not run another full season until 1991, when he returned to the RahMoc Enterprises team that propelled him to the 1991 LASTCAR title. Ruttman finished a strong 3rd in the Daytona 500 and came home 20th in points, but lost his ride once more. Ruttman ran just nine more Cup races through 1995, then turned his focus to the NASCAR Truck Series.
Then, in 2004, two years after his last start in any of NASCAR’s top three divisions, a 59-year-old Ruttman found himself in contention for a third LASTCAR Cup—
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
As big brother Darrell picked up two last-place finishes, Michael Waltrip scored his first Cup Series last-place finish in 1986 when his #23 Hawaiian Punch Buick lost the engine after 22 laps in the Valleydale 500. Rusty Wallace scored his first Cup win that day, his first of nine at the half-mile track.
Although he would not score Rookie of the Year until 1997, Mike Skinner scored his first last-place finish on September 21, 1986 during the Goody’s 500 at Martinsville, Virginia. Skinner finished 30th that day when his unsponsored #19 Zanworth Racing Team Pontiac lost oil pressure after 34 laps. It was Skinner’s second of eleven starts before he joined Richard Childress Racing in 1996.
Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner A.J. Foyt scored his first last-place run at Daytona Beach, Florda on July 4 when the engine gave out on his #14 Copenhagen Oldsmobile after 2 laps after qualifying 15th. Foyt’s seventh and final Cup win had come at Ontario, California on March 5, 1972, but “Super Tex” would continue to run NASCAR until his 128th and final start in the inaugural Brickyard 400 on August 6, 1994, where he finished 30th.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Joe Ruttman [5 B5s], Darrell Waltrip [4 B5s] (2)
2nd) Bobby Allison, Buddy Baker, Randy Baker, Eddie Bierschwale, Geoffrey Bodine, Ron Bouchard, Trevor Boys, Pancho Carter, Bill Elliott, Joe Fields, A.J. Foyt, Cliff Hucul, John Krebs, Jocko Maggiacomo, Joe Millikan, Rick Newsom, Benny Parsons, Kyle Petty, Mike Potter, Ken Ragan, Mike Skinner, Ronnie Thomas, Michael Waltrip (1)
