SEASON IN REVIEW
Coopersville, Michigan driver Henry “Butch” Miller picked up his first LASTCAR Truck Series Championship in 2008, scoring five last-place finishes in nine starts during a twenty-five race season.
Miller was competing in his tenth Truck Series season, having won one of the series’ inaugural races at Colorado National Speedway in Erie, Colorado on July 15, 1995, where he edged series champion Mike Skinner in an extraordinarily close photo finish to the Total Petroleum 200. Miller finished 4th in points that year and won the series’ first Most Popular Driver award. His early success was thanks to an extensive NASCAR career that preceded it, including 41 Cup Series starts dating back to 1986 and a Busch Series career that went back to 1985, including a pair of wins at Indianapolis Raceway Park and Hickory.
By 2008, however, the 56-year-old Miller was no longer running regularly in NASCAR. He hadn’t made a Cup Start since 1994, none in Busch since 2002, and in the years since was making just a handful of starts in the Truck Series. Ironically, his most recent Top Ten in Truck Series competition came while driving for Gene Christensen and Green Light Racing, with whom he finished 10th at Mansfield in the #07 ditech.com / GMAC Chevrolet on May 15, 2005.
It was with Christensen that Miller made his first Truck Series start in nearly two years, falling out with a vibration in the #0 ASI Limited Chevrolet after three laps of the San Bernardino County 200 at Fontana, the first of his five last-place finishes. The next came in the following race at Atlanta on March 7, where the #0 GunBroker.com Chevrolet overheated 3 laps into the American Commercial Lines 200. The third finish came at Dover on May 30, the first career victory for F1 export Scott Speed in the AAA Insurance 200, where Miller’s #0 broke an axle after 6 laps. Miller’s fourth finish came nine races later at Gateway on September 6, where the ignition failed on his #0 ASI Limited Chevrolet after three laps of the Camping World 200. The fifth was at Phoenix on November 7, where he was involved in a seven-truck wreck after five laps of the Lucas Oil 150.
In all, Miller scored five of Green Light Racing’s thirteen last-place finishes in 2008, a year where ownership of the #0 changed hands between Gene Christensen and longtime Nationwide Series competitor Bobby Dotter. Among the drivers who shared Miller’s ride were 2009 LASTCAR Nationwide Series Champion Johnny Chapman, who finished last at Indianapolis Raceway Park and Milwaukee, and 2007 LASTCAR Truck Series Champion Wayne Edwards, who tied Phil Bonifield for the all-time Truck Series last-place lead with three last-place runs at Kansas, Memphis, and Atlanta. During the summer, Edwards, Chapman, and Chris Jones (at Michigan) gave the #0 three consecutive last-place finishes, the first three-race sweep for a single team in Truck Series history.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
ARCA veteran Norm Benning was another of Green Light’s drivers in 2008, finishing next-to-last at Talladega on October 4. The 56-year-old driver moved his ARCA operation to the Truck Series at Nashville on August 9, where he scored his first last-place finish in the Toyota Tundra 200 after his #57 Benning Motorsports Chevrolet had a vibration on the opening lap. It was Benning’s first Truck Series start since 2002, when he made a one-off on the same Nashville track for owner Lonnie Troxell. In 2009, Benning committed to his first full Truck Series season and finished 21st in points.
Derrike Cope, the1990 Daytona 500 Champion and three-time LASTCAR Cup Series Champion, picked up his first Truck Series last-place finish at Charlotte on May 16 when his #74 Derrike Cope, Inc. Dodge fell out with a vibration after 4 laps of the North Carolina Education Lottery 200. To date, it is Cope’s only last-place run in the Truck Series.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Butch Miller (5)
2nd) Wayne Edwards (3)
3rd) Norm Benning, Johnny Chapman, Chris Jones (2)
4th) Sean Caisse, Chad Chaffin, Derrike Cope, Tim Cowen, Larry Gunselman, Mike Harmon, Justin Hobgood, Shelby Howard, Andy Lally, Kevin Lepage, Tayler Malsam (1)
