SEASON IN REVIEW
Hickory, North Carolina driver Tommy Sigmon picked up his first LASTCAR Busch Grand National Series Championship in 1988, scoring three last-place finishes in twenty-five starts during a thirty-race season. He claimed the title by finishing last in the season finale at Martinsville, breaking a tie with runner-up Dave Davis.
Sigmon was competing in his fourth season in NASCAR Busch Grand National Series competition. Following finishes of 16th and 17th in his first two starts, Sigmon signed with owner Dwight Huffman to drive the #07 Burke Grading & Pacing Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs in 1987. He scored his first two top-ten finishes that year, a pair of 10th-place runs at South Boston and Bristol. However, with DNFs in half of his eighteen starts, Sigmon finished just 23rd in points.
In 1988, Sigmon and the Huffman team began to improve, scoring six top-ten finishes while improving his career-best finish to a pair of 7th-place runs at Langley Speedway on April 30 and Richmond on September 10. However, he still scored nine DNFs for the second-straight year, including seven of his last ten starts, and racked-up three last-place finishes.
Sigmon’s first last-place finish of the season came in his first start of the year, the February 28 running of the Mountain Dew 400 at Hickory. He started a career-best 4th that day, but the engine on his Oldsmobile let go after just 62 laps. The next finish came twenty races later on August 13 in the Poole Equipment 150 at Orange County Speedway, the day his #7 Burke Grading & Pacing Oldsmobile crashed with Steve Grissom after eleven laps. The third finish came in the Winston Classic, the season finale at Martinsville on October 30, where his #07 Duck Graphics Oldsmobile crashed on the opening lap. The finish broke a tie with Dave Davis, who finished last in his only two starts that season.
Sigmon and Huffman separated after the 1988 season. The driver didn’t race in 1989 and made just fourteen more Busch Grand National Series starts through 1993, ending his career as an owner-driver with a 23rd-place finish in his 59th start at Myrtle Beach on June 12, 1993.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Morgan Shepherd not only finished last in both the Cup and Busch Grand National Series openers at Daytona in 1988, but both times drove an AC Spark Plugs-sponsored #97 Buick that fell out due to engine trouble. In the Busch Grand National Series’ Goody’s 300, Shepherd started 7th and led eight of the first eighteen laps before the engine let go on lap 21. The next day in the Daytona 500, Shepherd started 11th when the other engine blew after 11 laps.
South Boston, Virginia driver Jeff Burton finished last in his series debut at Martinsville on March 13 when his family-owned #64 Golden Skillet Chevrolet lost the engine after two laps of the Miller Classic. Burton finished no worse than 17th in his four other starts that year, then scored the first of his twenty-seven series wins in 1990 before he became the Cup Series Rookie of the Year for 1994.
Five years before his Busch Grand National Series Championship in 1993, Steve Grissom ran his first full season in 1988 and picked up his own first last-place finish at Charlotte. Grissom’s #39 Family Storage Center Ford fell out with a vibration after two laps of the Winn-Dixie 300 on May 28. Like Burton, Grissom was also driving for a family-owned team that scored several good runs later that year - one Top Five and four Top Tens - and he graduated to Cup in 1994.
Jack Ingram, the 1982 and 1985 NASCAR Busch Grand National Series Champion, scored his first last-place finish in 1988 when the engine blew on his #11 Skoal Chevrolet after 22 laps of the Big Star / Coca-Cola 200 at the Lanier Speedway on June 19. Ingram, one of the most dominant drivers in the years before and after the formation of the Busch Grand National Series, endured his first winless season in 1988, though he still amassed ten top-five finishes and twelve Top Tens in thirty starts.
The 1999 NASCAR Cup Champion and three-time Daytona 500 winner Dale Jarrett scored his first last-place finish in 1988 when his #32 Port-A-Lube Oldsmobile started 4th, but lost the engine 25 laps into the Tri-City Pontiac 200 at Bristol on August 26, edging Tommy Sigmon for the 32nd spot by fifteen laps. Jarrett won a race for his third consecutive season in 1988, which was also his first full season in the Cup Series.
On September 3, one week after Jarrett’s last-place finish, Ken Schrader scored his first last-place run in the Busch Grand National Series when his #52 Exxon Chevrolet fell out with electrical woes after five laps of the Gatorade 200 at Darlington. Schrader won his first Cup Series race at Talladega earlier that summer in his first season driving for Rick Hendrick.
One week after that on September 10, future car owner Andy Petree scored his first last-place finish in the Commonwealth 200 at Richmond when his #4 Lambert Racing Oldsmobile crashed after nine laps. Petree made just four more starts in the series before he acquired the #33 Leo Jackson Racing team in 1996.
Although starting lineup results are incomplete for the first few seasons of Busch Grand National Series competition, Bobby Dotter became the first recorded polesitter to finish last in a series race. The event was on June 25, the Granger Select 200 at Louisville, where Dotter’s #79 G&G Trucking Buick crashed after 34 laps.
Jeff Stevens and his #44 Moody Builders Pontiac finished 47th in the Oxford 250 on July 10, which as of this writing had the largest field of any Busch Grand National Series race. Stevens’ car fell out with a busted spring after four laps.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Tommy Sigmon (3)
2nd) Dave Davis (2)
3rd) Davey Allison, Allen Applegate, Joe Bessey, Kenny Burks, Jeff Burton, Larry Cates, Rodney Cundiff, Bobby Dotter, Dale Earnhardt, Ed Ferree, Steve Grissom, Jack Ingram, Dale Jarrett, John Linville, Bosco Lowe, Mark Martin, Joe Millikan, Andy Petree, Mike Porter, Ken Schrader, Morgan Shepherd, Jeff Stevens, Mike Swaim, Brad Teague, Joe Thurman (1)
