PHOTO: Jay Robinson Racing
SEASON IN REVIEW
Simpsonville, South Carolina driver Shane Hall picked up his first LASTCAR Busch Series Championship in 2006, scoring two last-place finishes in nine starts during a thirty-five race season. Hall defeated Aaron Fike in a bottom-ten tiebreaker 9-4, successfully rebounding from his bottom-five loss to Jeff Fuller the year before.
Hall was competing in his twelfth season in the Busch Series in a career dating back to 1995. That year, Hall made a pair of two Busch starts at Nashville Fairgrounds and Rockingham in the #85 Chevrolets owned by Don Stegall. During the Rockingham weekend, Hall also made his lone Cup start for co-owners Felix Sabates and Dick Brooks in the #40 Kendall Oil Pontiac. A crash with outside-polesitter Michael Waltrip that sent Waltrip into the water-filled barrels at pit entrance took Hall out of the race, leaving him 36th.
From 1996 through 2005, Hall turned his focus back to the Busch Series. He remained with the Stegall team and turned in his best season in 1998 when he scored one pole and three Top Tens. The next year, he moved to the Mike Curb team and picked up a career-best 4th at Myrtle Beach driving the #43 Central Tractor / Farm & Country Chevrolet. Hall made just a couple starts in 2000, then ran two full seasons for Hubert Hensley in the #63 Greased Lightning Chevrolet. However, with just one Top Ten in that span, Hall was out of a ride again, relegated to making just a handful of starts.
Hall made his first start for Jay Robinson at Indianapolis Raceway Park in 2004, where he finished 41st in the Kroger 200. Robinson’s team finished last in its first race at Myrtle Beach in 2000 when Rodney Childers’ #49 Southern Marine Chevrolet crashed after 69 laps of the Myrtle Beach 250. Since then, the team had jut one Top Ten, when Andy Kirby’s #49 Rent-A-Wreck Ford finished 6th in the crash-marred Aaron’s 312 at Talladega in 2002.
By 2006, Robinson’s team had two cars, #28 and #49, and though Hall was one of ten drivers to drive in either car that season, neither car finished any better than 21st, and Hall scored two of the team’s five last-place finishes. The first of these finishes came at Daytona on June 30 when his #49 Speed Zone Energy Drink / Advil Ford lost the engine after 10 laps. The other came three races later at Martinsville on July 22, the series’ first appearance at the half-mile since 1994. Hall’s #49 Advil Liqui-Gels Ford suffered an electrical problem after 34 laps of the Goody’s 250.
Hall made just one more Busch Series start, the 190th of his career, at Nashville on June 7, 2008. Hall finished last for the ninth time in his career in that running of the Federated Auto Parts 300 when his #49 Jay Robinson, Inc. Chevrolet had a vibration after the opening lap. Hall made four X-1R Pro Cup Series starts in 2006 and 2009, scoring Top Tens in three of them.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
LASTCAR runner-up Aaron Fike scored the second and third last-place finishes of his Busch Series career in 2006 at Daytona on February 18 and at Darlington on May 12 while driving the #43 CayClub.com Dodges for Shane Hall’s former owner Mike Curb. Fike moved to the Truck Series in 2007, but was suspended indefinitely for a drug offense. He was reinstated in 2012, but as of this writing, has not raced in NASCAR since.
Stacy Compton ran the most recent 35 of his 173 Busch Series starts in 2006 and scored his first last-place finish in Mexico City on March 5 when his #59 Kingsford Sure Fire / Busch’s Beans Ford lost the engine after 3 laps of the Telcel-Motorola 200 presented by Banamex. Compton turned his attention back to the Truck Series in 2007 and ran there through 2010. In 2012, he brought his Truck Series team, Turn One Racing, into the Cup Series for seven starts, including a last-place run with Reed Sorenson in his #74 Chevrolet at Martinsville.
Carl Edwards was an established winner by 2006, having scored four impressive wins during his first full season in Cup in 2005 while scoring another five Busch wins the same year. In 2006, Edwards won four more times, but also scored his first Busch last-place finish on April 8 at Texas. Edwards’ #60 Henkel Ford lost the engine after 75 laps. The next year, Edwards won another four races on his way to the NASCAR Busch Series Championship.
The 2003 NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year Jamie McMurray joined Edwards as a teammate in the Cup Series in 2006 and made twenty Busch Series starts the same year. He finished winless for the second-straight Busch season and scored his first last-place finish at Charlotte on May 27. That day, McMurray started outside-pole in Rusty Wallace’s #64 Top-Flite XL Extreme Dodge, but he crashed out of the lead after just two laps.
One year after his short-lived Cup season for Joe Gibbs Racing, when he debuted the #11 FedEx Chevrolet team that, by fall, suddenly became competitive with Denny Hamlin, Jason Leffler returned to run the full Busch Series season for owner Todd Braun, searching for his first Busch win since 2004. Instead, Leffler went winless and scored his first last-place finish at Nashville on June 10 when his #38 Great Clips Chevrolet lost the engine on the opening lap of the Federated Auto Parts 300. The next season, Leffler gave Toyota its first Busch Series win at Indianapolis Raceway Park.
On June 24, 71-year-old James Hylton made his first Busch Series start since 1982 at the Milwaukee Mile driving the same #28 Speed Zone Energy Drink / Advil Chevrolet raced by Shane Hall. Hylton finished last in the AT&T 250 due to brake problems after four laps. The next year, Hylton narrowly missed a spot in the field for the 2007 Daytona 500, and he has since run twice more in the Busch Series, most recently in 2011, when he finished last at Darlington at the tender age of 76.
Two prolific underdogs scored their first last-place finishes in 2006. Carl Long scored his at Indianapolis Raceway Park on August 5, when his #26 lovefifi.com Chevrolet suffered electrical problems after 36 laps of the Kroger 200. At Phoenix on November 11, Brian Keselowski scored his first hen his #23 Ridley Motorcycles Chevrolet crashed 22 laps into the Arizona Travel 200. Four years later, Keselowski’s family-owned team, K-Automotive Motorsports, would contend for a LASTCAR title with driver Dennis Setzer.
The 2006 Indianapolis 500 Champion Sam Hornish, Jr. scored his first Busch Series last-place finish that same season when his #39 Mobil 1 Dodge crashed after 20 laps of the season-ending Ford 300. Hornish made nine more starts in 2007 before he moved to the Cup Series in 2008.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Aaron Fike [4 B5s, 4 B10s], Shane Hall [4 B5s, 9 B10s], Jason Leffler [3 B5s] (2)
2nd) Greg Biffle, Stacy Compton, Kevin Conway, Kertus Davis, Justin Diercks, Carl Edwards, Mark Green, Kevin Grubb, Tracy Hines, Sam Hornish, Jr., James Hylton, Jennifer Jo Cobb, P.J. Jones, Kasey Kahne, Joel Kauffman, Brian Keselowski, Kevin Lepage, Carl Long, Scott Lynch, Randy MacDonald, Joey McCarthy, Eric McClure, Jamie McMurray, Josh Richeson, Jay Sauter, Tim Schendel, Morgan Shepherd, Auggie Vidovich, Chris Wimmer (1)
