SEASON IN REVIEW
Conover, North Carolina driver Glenn Jarrett picked up his first LASTCAR Busch Grand National Series Championship in 1984, scoring two last-place finishes in twenty-six starts during a twenty-nine race season. Jarrett won the series’ first bottom-ten tiebreaker over Jack Bland, 15-7.
The son of two-time Cup Series champion Ned and the older brother of three-time Daytona 500 winner Dale, Glenn was competing in his third season on the Busch Grand National Series tour. He ran more races in 1984 than any other in his career. All but two of Jarrett’s starts that year came while driving the #24 Ford for owner Marvin Thackston, a team with which he stayed for most of his career. Though he received sponsorship from companies like Budweiser and Komfort Koach, he ran many more races without a sponsor.
Jarrett scored the first last-place finish of his Busch Grand National Series career in the 1983 finale at Martinsville following a first-lap engine failure. It was the final race before the series became known as the NASCAR Busch Grand National Series. 1983 was also the year of Jarrett’s tenth and final Cup Series start at Pocono, where his #65 Spohn’s Body Shop Ford crashed after 24 laps and came home 36th in the 40-car field for the Like Cola 500.
Jarrett picked up three top-ten finishes in the 1984 Busch season, including a season-best 7th at South Boston on August 18th, but his 13th-place finish in the point standings masked thirteen DNFs and an average finish of just 19.7.
Jarrett’s first last-place finish of the 1984 season came in the ninth races of the year at Langley Speedway on May 5. Driving a #05 Adkins Service Center Pontiac for another owner, Jarrett started last and finished there due to handling woes after 17 laps. Back with the Thackston team, Jarrett’s next finish came just two races later at Dover, where electrical problems kept him from completing a single lap. Again, Jarrett started last and finished there.
Jarrett competed in a total of 67 Busch Grand National Series races through 1993, but never bested his career-best 4th-place run in the Miller Time 300 at Charlotte on October 9, 1982. Following his driving career, Jarrett became one of the sport’s most prolific pit reporters, doing work for both MRN Radio and on TV for The Nashville Network (TNN).
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
One week before Jarrett’s last-place run at Langley, three-time Cup Series Champion Darrell Waltrip scored his first Busch last-place finish at his home track in Nashville, Tennessee, following a Lap 9 carburetor problem on his #17 Hodgdon Pontiac. Waltrip started 6th in the April 28 race, but finished last in the 21-car field.
Longtime racer L.D. Ottinger, a NASCAR Sportsman Series Champion in 1975 and 1976, scored his first last-place finish in 1984, his first full season in the newly-formed Busch Grand National Series. On June 2, his #10 Schlitz Oldsmobile lost the engine on the opening lap of the Busch 200 at South Boston. It was the only last-place finish of his 206-race career, which stretched ten seasons, three wins, and seven consecutive years of finishing Top Ten in points.
After running strong for years in the NASCAR Sportsman Series, Sam Ard won back-to-back NASCAR Busch Grand National Series championships in 1983 and 1984, scoring eighteen of his twenty-two series wins in that span. Though he finished last in his only Cup Series start at Martinsville on September 23, 1984, Ard never once finished last in 92 Busch Grand National Series starts.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Jack Bland [4 B5s, 7 B10s], Glenn Jarrett [9 B5s, 15 B10s], Dickie Linville [2 B5s], John Linville [3 B5s], Bubba Nissen [4 B5s], Ronnie Silver [2 B5s], Danny Weese [2 B5s] (2)
2nd) Bobby Allison, Ed Berrier, Eddie Falk, Jay Hedgecock, Tommy Hilbert, Benny Kerley, Robert Ingram, Jimmy Lawson, Bosco Lowe, L.D. Ottinger, Pete Silva, Bob Shreeves, Lowe Smith, Joe Thurman, Darrell Waltrip (1)
