SEASON IN REVIEW
McKinney, Texas driver Robert Richardson, Jr. picked up his first LASTCAR Truck Series Championship in 2006, scoring four last-place finishes in twenty starts during a twenty-five race season.
Richardson was competing in his second Truck Series season, following a three-race run in late 2005 for three different teams owned by Rob Ferguson, Malik Ibrahim, and his family-owned Richardson Racing #35 Chevrolet. In 2006, Richardson and his family’s team ran their first full Truck Series season, campaigning a #1 WinYourMortgage.com Chevrolet. Though Richardson scored his best finishes of the season at Talladega and Daytona, finishing 16th and 17th, respectively, he also failed to qualify for five races and scored six DNFs, finishing last in all but two of those races.
Richardson’s first last-place finish took place at Gateway on April 29 when he crashed by himself after 47 laps of the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers Ram Tough 200. The next occurred nine races later at Memphis, where this time the engine let go after 83 laps of the O’Reilly 200 on July 15. The other two finishes occurred when he crashed-out of consecutive races later that summer - first at Bristol on August 23, where crash damage stopped him 11 laps into the O’Reilly Auto Parts 200, and then on September 16 at New Hampshire, where he wrecked with two other trucks after the opening lap of the New Hampshire 200.
To date, Richardson has run just one more Truck Series race, finishing 35th at Talladega on October 31, 2009. He drove for Jay Robinson Racing’s Busch Series team in 2007 and for the first part of 2008 before his family-owned team, now called R3 Motorsports, introduced its #23 Renegade Wheels Chevrolet at Charlotte, finishing 38th there on May 24, 2008.
The next year, Richardson made his Cup debut at Talladega driving for Tommy Baldwin and finished a surprising 18th, securing him five more Cup Series restrictor-plate starts for Front Row Motorsports over the next two seasons. In 2012, R3 Motorsports made a brief appearance in the Cup Series. The team hired Scott Riggs to park their #23 North Texas Pipe Chevrolets in twenty races, scoring three last-place finishes, while Richardson took over to finish 27th and 35th at Talladega. In 2013, Richardson finally earned his first top-ten finish with a 9th in the DRIVE4COPD 400 at Daytona, driving R3's #23 Stalk It / World Ventures Chevrolet.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Two-time Australian V8 SuperCar Champion Marcos Ambrose ran his only Truck Series season in 2006, scoring a pair of 3rd-place finishes at Kansas and Nashville in the #20 Aussie experience / Aussie Vineyards Ford. He also finished last for the first time at Charlotte on May 19, where he started 3rd, but crashed after 4 laps of the Quaker Steak & Lube 200. Ambrose moved to the Busch Series in 2007, nearly winning the series’ inaugural race at Montreal before Robby Gordon spun him out of the lead.
Aric Almirola, who would become Ambrose’s Cup Series teammate at Richard Petty Motorsports in 2012, ran his first full Truck Series season in 2006 following a pair of Top Tens during a four-race stint in 2005. Driving Wayne Spears’ prolific #75 Spears Manufacturing Chevrolet, Almirola scored another three Top Tens, but also his first last-place finish at Michigan. In that running of the Con-way Freight 200 on June 17, Almirola finished under power, but 33 laps down following a crash on Lap 12.
Mark Martin was one of the 2006 season’s biggest stories, winning six of his fourteen starts that year despite making just three starts in the series in 1996 and 2005. Though his #6 Scotts Miracle-Gro Ford seemed unstoppable at times, it did still finish last in its only DNF of the year at Atlanta on October 28, when he started 6th but crashed just 2 laps into the Easy Care Vehicle Service Contracts 200. That race saw four of the Top Ten starters finish in the Bottom Five with Martin joining Joe Nemechek, A.J. Allmendinger, and Chase Miller.
The Talladega race where Richardson scored his season-best 16th-place finish was the first for the Truck Series at the 2.66-mile facility, the October 7 running of the John Deere 250. Though the race became one of Mark Martin’s six wins that season, finishing last that day was another first-timer, Kerry Earnhardt. Earnhardt, the replacement for 2005 LASTCAR Truck Series Champion Tracy Hines in the #13 ThorSport Racing Chevrolet, finished last for the first time in the Talladega event when the engine let go after 4 laps.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Robert Richardson, Jr. (4)
2nd) Kelly Sutton (2)
3rd) Justin Allgaier, Aric Almirola, Marcos Ambrose, Chad Chaffin, Erin Crocker, Kerry Earnhardt, Bobby East, Wayne Edwards, Kraig Kinser, Damon Lusk, Mark Martin, Chase Miller, Joey Miller, Ryan Moore, Steve Park, Boston Reid, Todd Shafer, Chris Wimmer (1)
