SEASON IN REVIEW
Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin driver “Flyin’” Bryan Reffner picked up his first LASTCAR Truck Series Championship in 1998, scoring two last-place finishes in twenty-six starts during a twenty-seven race season. Reffner won a bottom-five tiebreaker over both Rick Carelli and Rick Crawford 6-3, and became the first LASTCAR Truck Series Champion to not have been born on the west coast.
Reffner was competing in his third full season on the Truck Series tour. He joined the circuit in 1996 driving for Irvan-Simo Racing in the #44 1-800-COLLECT Ford and scored three Top Fives, nine Top Tens, and three poles, putting him 9th in points. The season gave Reffner the first Rookie of the Year award in the history of the Truck Series. In 1997, Reffner moved to the #66 Carlin Combustion & Controls Ford owned by Dale Phelon, looking to build on his success. However, after crashing out of the first four races of the season, Reffner struggled to just two Top Tens and failed to finish the last six races of the year, upping his season DNF total to 13.
Reffner returned to Phelon’s team in 1997 and improved his career-best finish to 3rd at Flemington on August 8. However, despite seven Top Tens in his first seventeen starts of the season, Reffner and Phelon separated after a 14th-place run at Nashville on August 15. Reffner drove for five different teams in the final nine races of the season, but also scored six DNFs in that span, including both last-place finishes that gave him the LASTCAR title.
Reffner’s first finish of the year came in his first start after leaving Phelon, the August 23 running of the Lund Look 275K at Heartland Park Topeka. In the firs of two starts that season for Jim Herrick, Reffner’s #98 Porter-Cable Power Tools Ford started last and finished there due to handling woes after 2 laps. The other finish came six races later at Sonoma on October 11, during his only start for owner Ron Norick in the #1 Dana Dodge. Reffner’s truck again fell out due to handling woes, this time after one lap of the Kragen / Exide 151.
Following his 22nd-place finish in points for 1998, Reffner ran part-time in 1999 for John Conely in his #7 Chevrolets before he returned to full-time competition in 2000 driving for businessman John Menard. It was in Menard’s #3 Johns Manville Chevrolet that Reffner finished 9th in points. He scored his only career victory in that truck during the O’Reilly 400 at Texas on October 13, 2000, a race marred by the death of driver Tony Roper during a hard crash in the quad-oval on Lap 32.
Reffner ran 126 Truck Series races through 2003, when he drove for his own team in his final two starts at Richmond and Homestead. Since then, he’s also made three Busch Series starts and seven in the ARCA Racing Series. He finished last in his final Busch start at Gateway on July 30, 2005 when his #67 Panasonic Dodge broke a rear gear without completing a lap of the Wallace Family Tribute 250.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Greg Biffle ran his first full Truck Series season in 1998, picking up eight Top Fives, twelve Top Tens, and four poles in the #50 Grainger Ford fielded by Roush Racing. He also scored his first last-place finish in his 3rd career start at Phoenix on April 19, where he crashed 2 laps into the Chevy Trucks NASCAR 150. Biffle won nine races the next season, then another five in 2000, culminating in the 2000 NASCAR Truck Series Championship. He won twice more in 2001, adding to his five Busch Grand National Division wins he scored as a rookie that same season.
Colorado native Rick Carelli, known as “The High Plains Drifter” for his eleven wins in the K&N Pro Series West, competed in his fourth full season in the Truck Series. Driving for longtime K&N owner Marshall Chesrown, Carelli scored his second career Truck Series victory at Gateway on September 19 and finished 11th in points. He also finished last for the first time at I-70 Speedway on May 23 when his #6 RE/MAX International Chevrolet started outside-pole and led 18 laps of the Yellow Freight 200, only to crash after 88 laps. Carelli won a total of 4 Truck Series races in 134 starts through 2002, finishing 5th in his final career start at Daytona.
Road race ace Boris Said ran his second full season in the Truck Series in 1998, running for the same Irvan-Simo Racing team that gave Reffner Rookie of the Year two years earlier. Said scored his lone Truck Series win the day Reffner finished last at Sonoma, taking the checkered flag in the Kragen / Exide 151 on October 11. He also finished last for the first time at Texas on June 5, when his #44 Federated Auto Parts Ford was taken out in a multi-truck crash 3 laps into the Pronto Auto Parts 400K. As of this writing, Said has not raced in the Truck Series since 2005.
David Starr also made his Truck Series debut in 1998, running five races for Buddy Morrison in his #9 Chevrolets. He failed to finish just one of those races, finishing last at Fontana on July 18 when his #9 Reher-Morrison Chevrolet broke a transmission 22 laps into The No Fear Challenge. In 2002, following three more part-time seasons, Starr climbed aboard the #75 Spears Manufacturing Chevrolet and claimed the first of four career victories at Las Vegas on October 13, 2002. As of this writing, Starr is still active in the Truck Series with more than 300 starts to his credit.
Former Atlanta Falcons coach Jerry Glanville made the 22nd and 23rd of his 27 career Truck Series starts in 1998, running as an owner-driver in the #81 Unifirst Uniforms / HBO Sports Ford at Fontana on July 18 and the next week at Pikes Peak on July 25. Coach Glanville scored the first and only last-place finish of his Truck career in the race at Pikes Peak, crashing with two other trucks 18 laps into the Tempus Resorts 300K. Since his final Truck Series start at Loudon in 1999, Glanville has made a pair of K&N West starts and seventeen ARCA starts, most recently at Michigan in 2004, driving for Norm Benning.
Randy Tolsma competed in his third Truck Series season in 1998, coming off a year where he scored his first series win at Mesa Marin on October 12, 1997. Tolsma went winless in 1998, but scored his first last-place finish in the series’ return to Mesa Marin on October 18 during the Dodge California Truck Stop 300. In that race, his first for owner Dominic Dobson, Tolsma did not start his #78 MCI / Mopar Dodge. Tolsma went on to make 107 Truck Series starts through 2002 and picked up a second win in the series’ final race at Nashville Fairgrounds on April 8, 2000.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Rick Carelli [3 B5s], Rick Crawford [3 B5s], Bryan Reffner [6 B5s] (2)
2nd) Wayne Anderson, Tommy Archer, Blake Bainbridge, Greg Biffle, Johnny Chapman, Terry Cook, Dominic Dobson, Joe Gaita, Doug George, Jerry Glanville, Bob Keselowski, Rick McCray, Rob Morgan, Tony Raines, Randy Renfrow, Tony Roper, Lonnie Rush, Jr., Boris Said, David Starr, Randy Tolsma, Scot Walters (1)
