SEASON IN REVIEW
Lakeville, Minnesota driver Mike Garvey picked up his second LASTCAR Truck Series Championship in 2011, scoring six last-place finishes in eighteen starts during a twenty-five race season. Garvey became the first back-to-back LASTCAR Truck Series Champion and tied Phil Bonifield’s all-time single-season record of six last-place finishes set in 1999.
Garvey picked up where he left off in 2010, this time driving the #38 S&W Services Chevrolet for Sieg in all but two races. In those two races at Bristol and Martinsville, the #93 had changed back from a full-time ride for Cole Whitt and Shane Sieg into a second “start-and-park” team for Shane, Garvey, and five other drivers, including Casey Roderick, Josh Wise, B.J. McLeod, Ross Chastain, and 2010 LASTCAR Nationwide Series champion Dennis Setzer. Ryan Sieg remained the full-time driver of the #39, but struggled to just one Top Ten all year, a 7th at Texas on June 10, dropping him from 15th to 19th in points. Garvey, meanwhile, scored DNFs in all eighteen of his starts and finished last at a rate of one for every three starts.
Garvey’s first last-place finish of the year came in his season debut in the #38 at Nashville on April 22 when his Chevrolet lost oil pressure 4 laps into the Bully Hill Vineyards 200. The next occurred two races later at Charlotte on May 20, where his #38 broke the transmission after 4 laps of the North Carolina Education Lottery 200. The next two, also in the #38, occurred in consecutive races. He completed the season sweep at Nashville on July 22 when his truck suffered a vibration after 3 laps of the Lucas Deep Clean 200. In the next race at Lucas Oil Raceway (Indianapolis Raceway Park), the rear gear gave out after 7 laps of the AAA Insurance 200. Garvey finished last in the #93 ten races later at Martinsville on October 29, where the brakes were to blame for an exit after 8 laps of the Kroger 200. In Garvey’s 38th series start at Texas, Garvey returned to the #38 and finished last for the sixth time with a burned clutch after 5 laps of the WinStar World Casino 350K on November 4.
In the end, Garvey scored six of the Sieg team’s seven last-place finishes in 2011, excepting only a last-place finish by Dennis Setzer at Atlanta on September 2, where his #93 lost the brakes after 6 laps of the Good Sam Club 200. That finish would show what was to come for 2012, as Setzer would take over Garvey’s ride in the #38 and become the first NASCAR driver to score LASTCAR titles in both the Nationwide and Truck Series.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Travis Kvapil, the 2003 NASCAR Truck Series Champion, scored his first last-place finish in 2011 at Phoenix on February 25 when his #5 International Truck / Monaco RVs Toyota was involved in two of the race’s first three cautions and fell out with crash damage after 99 laps of the Lucas Oil 150. Kvapil ran just nine more races that season before he eyed a return to the Cup Series in 2012 as a driver for BK Racing, formerly known as Team Red Bull.
Fourth-year driver James Buescher failed to qualify for the race where Kvapil finished last, but he had an outstanding 2011, finishing 3rd in points driving Steve Turner’s #31. He also finished last for the first time at Martinsville on April 2 when his #31 Wolfpack Rentals Chevrolet was involved in a grinding crash with Jeffrey Earnhardt after 134 laps of the Kroger 250. Buescher built on his 2011 successes with four wins in 2012 on his way to the NASCAR Truck Series Championship at the age of 22.
In 2001, Scott Riggs finished 5th in points during an incredible five-win season for Jim Smith, to date his only full-time season in the Truck Series. After that, he enjoyed two more winning seasons in the Nationwide Series and contended for Cup Series Rookie of the Year in 2004. After five difficult seasons with no better than a 20th-place finish in points, Riggs was a Cinderella Story of SpeedWeeks 2009, racing Tommy Baldwin’s unsponsored #36 Toyota into the Daytona 500, a race Riggs had narrowly missed during his best Cup season in 2006. In 2011, Riggs made just one Truck Series start, running the #07 SS Green Light Racing / www.Bobber.info Toyota in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas. Riggs finished last in that June 4 race when the rear gear gave out after 4 laps, but he gained another Cup Series ride with R3 Motorsports the following season.
At Talladega on October 22, J.J. Yeley became the first NASCAR driver to score last-place finishes in all three of NASCAR’s top divisions in the same season. In the Talladega race, the Coca-Cola 250, Yeley’s #66 Turn One Racing Chevrolet broke the transmission after the opening lap, giving him the first last-place finish of his Truck Series career. That same season, Yeley scored one last-place finish in Nationwide and six in Cup, nearly overcoming Michael McDowell for the LASTCAR Cup Series title with a late rally in Front Row Motorsports’ “start-and-park” #55.
On April 15, Rockingham Speedway held an event from NASCAR’s top three divisions for the first time since 2004 with the Good Sam Roadside Assistance 200 at the 1-mile oval. Kasey Kahne won the race, while finishing last for the first time that day was Grant Enfinger, whose #60 Turn One Racing Chevrolet fell out with transmission problems after 12 laps.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Mike Garvey (6)
2nd) Norm Benning, Chris Lafferty, Brent Raymer (2)
3rd) Johnny Borneman III, James Buescher, Johnny Chapman, Chris Jones, Mike Harmon, Jennifer Jo Cobb, Travis Kvapil, Johanna Long, Scott Riggs, Greg Seevers, Dennis Setzer, Brad Sweet, J.J. Yeley (1)
