SEASON IN REVIEW
Winston-Salem, North Carolina driver Ed Berrier picked up his first LASTCAR Busch Grand National Series Championship in 1986, scoring three last-place finishes in twenty-three starts during a thirty-one race season.
Berrier was competing in his third season on the tour. He started 1986 with the same family-owned team that put him through two part-time seasons. Berrier’s #60 scored a then-best 6th-place finish in the 1984 season finale at Martinsville. However, following a handful of starts in McDowell Racing’s #53 Green Hill Sausage Pontiac in 1985, Berrier began to explore other options.
Berrier raced for four different teams in 1986, sharing time between his #60, McDowell’s #53, a #05 Pontiac sponsored by G&B Insulation, and the Dwight Huffman-owned #07 Hunt Tire-sponsored Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles. The result was a difficult season with no finishes better than an 11th at Dover, 12 DNFs, and a 20th-place finish in points. He also scored three last-place finishes among two of those four teams, good enough to take the LASTCAR title outright after his bottom-five tiebreaker loss to Joe Thurman the year before.
Berrier’s first last-place finish came at South Boston on May 31, when his #60 Berrier Racing Oldsmobile lost the engine after 29 laps of the Pepsi 200. The other two came when the engine let go on the Huffman team’s #07 Pontiac - first at Bristol on August 22 where he stopped after 13 laps of the Tri-City Pontiac 200, then at the Orange County Speedway on September 28, where it happened after two laps of the Roses Stores 150.
Berrier would go on to run 250 Busch Grand National Series races over seventeen seasons. He ran part-time from 1992 through 1997, then in 1998 landed a full-time ride with owner Tony Hall. During the final NASCAR Busch Grand National Series race at Hickory, North Carolina on April 11, 1998, Berrier led a race-high 187 laps and scored his only NASCAR victory in the Galaxy Food Centers 300. The 1988 LASTCAR Cup Series Champion Jimmy “Smut” Means was his crew chief.
In 1990, Berrier tied John Linville for the most last-place finishes in Busch Grand National Series history. He took the overall lead in 1992, lost it to Tommy Houston in 1996, then tied Houston in 1998. In 2001, Berrier finished last in his 250th and final Busch Grand National Series start, the inaugural Mr. Goodcents 300 at the Kansas Speedway. The finish gave Berrier sole possession of the LASTCAR Busch Grand National Series record for three more seasons before Jeff Fuller bested him in 2004.
Berrier competed in nineteen Cup Series races from 1995 through 2000. His final NASCAR start came in the Camping World Truck Series in 2003, when he finished 13th in his only series start at Daytona.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
On July 14, Dick McCabe scored his first last-place finish at the Oxford Plains Speedway when his #33 Johnathon’s Restaurant / Bosch Buick lost the engine after 29 of 330 laps of the Oxford 250. It was the first 43-car field in the history of the series.
Patty Moise became the first female driver to finish last in a NASCAR Busch Grand National Series race when, on July 6, her #47 Buick lost the engine after the opening lap of the Food Giant 300 at the Road Atlanta Speedway. Moise started 3rd in what was the series’ first road course race, but trailed the 30-car field.
One year before his record-breaking rookie season in the Cup Series, Davey Allison scored his first last-place finish in the Busch Grand National Series. On September 21, Allison’s #7 Miller American Buick crashed after four laps of the Nationwise 150 at Martinsville.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Ed Berrier (3)
2nd) Eddie Falk, Mike Porter, Orville Reedy, Merv Treichler (2)
3rd) Mike Alexander, Davey Allison, Jeff Berry, Dickie Boswell, Kirk Bryant, Kenny Burks, Bobby Dragon, Jimmy Hensley, Tommy Houston, Robert Ingram, Jimmy Lawson, Bosco Lowe, Rick Mast, Dick McCabe, Patty Moise, Paul Radford, Rounder Saverance, Bob Shreeves, Joe Thurman, Haskell Willingham (1)
