Race Fan's Reflections ~ The 1994 Rookie Class
12/03/2013 Jim Fitzgerald As the then-Winston Cup Series was coming off of a great young crop of rookies from the 1993 season, which included two future Cup Series Champions in Jeff Gordon and Bobby Labonte, the battle for the 1994 Rookie of the Year title looked very promising. A record ten drivers threw their respective hats into the ring, each running more than five races in a season for the first time in their careers. The list of drivers contained a lot of talent from the development series, now known as the Nationwide Series. While this may have been the year that Dale Earnhardt tied Richard Petty with his seventh series Championship, it was a glimpse into the future of stock car racing, and one member of that group may still be running next season, even if only on a limited basis. From South Boston, Virginia, Jeff Burton arrived on the scene to drive the No. 8 Stavola Brothers Racing Raybestos Thunderbird. Burton would start 30 of the 31 races that season, scoring two top-fives, including his best finishes of 4th at Atlanta and Pocono, as well as one other top-ten. Burton was as high as 14th in the points after the first race at Darlington, but ultimately finished the season in 24th place. To this date in his career, Jeff Burton has compiled 691 starts, 21 wins, 134 top-five finishes, 254 top-ten finishes, and six pole awards. He would go on to win the Rookie of the Year title in 1994. Burton wouldn’t claim his first win until after joining Jack Roush’s outfit, when he won the 1997 Interstate Batteries 500 at Texas. Highlight wins include the Southern 500 at Darlington and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte. Burton remains the last driver to lead every lap of an event, the 2000 DuraLube 300 at New Hampshire. This race was run with restrictor plates on the cars, which was a Band-Aid fix for the deaths of Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin at the same track earlier in the year. In 2004, Burton left Roush in favor of Richard Childress Racing, where he continued to drive until the end of this most recent season. To date, his best finish in the Championship standings was a third place in 2000. Rich Bickle, from Edgerton, Wisconsin found his rookie year rather uneventful, driving the No. 9 Melling Racing Engine Parts Thunderbird for Harry Melling. Later in the season, he also made one start for Gene Isenhour in the No. 45 Terminal Trucking Thunderbird and one for the Ruolo Brothers’ No. 39 Pedigree Lumina. Only making twelve starts that year, Bickle never climbed higher in the Championship points than the 42nd position. His best finish that season was a 20th at Daytona. In his career, Bickle accumulated 85 starts, 0 wins, 1 top-five, 3 top-tens, and no poles. In the Tri-Star Motorsports No. 19 Hooters Thunderbird, Loy Allen, Jr., from Raleigh, North Carolina, started off the season with a bang. He won the pole for the Daytona 500, then again at Atlanta and later at Michigan. The promise was never fully realized, however. The team only ran in 19 of 31 races that year, and the best finish was an 11th at Charlotte. He was 22nd in points after the season opening Daytona 500, but finished the year in 39th place. In his career, he scored 48 starts, 0 wins, 0 top-fives, 1 top-ten, and three poles. Gary Bechtel, owner of the No. 29 Diamond Ridge Motorsports Lumina tapped Steve Grissom from Gadsden, Alabama to drive their car and run for the rookie title in 1994. The team was able to run 28 of the 31 races. Their best finish was a 7th at Dover, and they then followed it up with an eighth place finish at Richmond. Grissom climbed as high at 27th in the point standings during his rookie season, and finished 28th, while finishing second in the Rookie of the Year battle to Jeff Burton. In his career, Grissom had 151 starts, no wins, 5 top-fives and 18 top-tens, while scoring zero poles. In the No. 31 that year, you would have found Ward Burton from South Boston, Virginia. Ward was piloting the A.G. Dillard Motorsports Hardee’s Chevrolet Lumina. This team transferred from the Busch Series, and was able to start 26 of 31 races that season. Their best finish was a 2nd at Pocono, with a ninth place at Rockingham in the fall, and they also won the pole at Charlotte a week before. Ward was never able to climb out of the cellar after not qualifying for the first two races of the season. There were also three DNQs and an unfortunate twelve races where the team was unable to finish, resulting in a final 35th place in the point standings. He returned to the same team in 1995, but was released halfway through the season. He signed almost immediately with Bill Davis Racing, and in October of that year, won the AC Delco 500 at Rockingham. Ward went on to have a career lifted by big wins, including the 2001 Southern 500 and the 2002 Daytona 500. In a career that spanned 375 starts, Burton had five wins, 24 top-fives, 82 top-tens and, seven poles. His highest finish in the championship standings would be a ninth place in 1999. In the No. 41 car that year was Joe Nemechek from Naples, Florida. Larry Hedrick had been in the sport as a car owner for about four years with no great success, other than a top-five from Dick Trickle the previous season. In 1994, the Larry Hedrick Motorsports Meineke Lumina would not fare much better, equaling that one top-five in 29 races. The team had qualified in the top-ten a respectable ten times, but could not translate that into race success. They also had a best finish of 3rd at Pocono, but also had a 7th at Michigan and an 8th at Watkins Glen. The team missed the Daytona 500 in addition to a race at North Wilkesboro which had them behind to start the season. They were as low as 44th in the points during the season, and as high as 26th, but ended up 27th. Nemechek left the team at the end of the season. Hedrick signed Ricky Craven, and Nemechek brought his NEMCO Motorsports team up from the Busch Series for a few years. It would not be until 1999 when “Front Row Joe” would find Victory Lane at Loudon, New Hampshire driving for Felix Sabates. He also picked up a win at Rockingham driving for Andy Petree, Richmond for Hendrick Motorsports, and Kansas for Nelson Bowers in the U.S. Army car. In his career, Nemechek had never finished higher than fifteenth in the standings, but did accumulate 651 starts, four wins, eighteen top-fives, 62 top-tens, and scored ten poles. John Andretti, from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, started the season in the No. 14 Financial World sponsored Billy Hagan Racing Lumina. After failing to finish ten of the first eighteen races, following the race at Indianapolis, Andretti left the Hagan effort and went to Petty Enterprises and had only two DNFs for the rest of the year. It was also there that he scored his best finish of the season, an eleventh at Dover in the fall. Andretti missed two races that season, including a DNQ at the first race at Bristol. While with Hagan, Andretti averaged about 37th in the points. After he moved to the Petty team, he moved up and stayed at the 32nd position in points for the latter part of his rookie season, and that is exactly where he would finish. In 1997, Andretti would be driving for Cale Yarborough, and would score his first win in the summer race at Daytona. In 1999, once again driving for Petty, he would score his second career win, this one at Martinsville. For his career, Andretti made 393 starts, secured two wins, 13 top-fives, 37 top-tens, and four poles. In 1998, he would finish with his highest ranking in the season long standings, an eleventh place. In the new No. 47 ride was Billy Standridge from Shelby, North Carolina. Standridge would drive the Thunderbird for Johnson Racing which was sponsored by the Johnson organization itself, along with Standridge Auto Parts, and a few races by professional wrestling company WCW. The team had, along with the twelve races for which they did not qualify, 5 DNFs in the eight races they did make. Their best finish was a 24th at Darlington. Standridge and his team hovered around the bottom of the standings for the year and finally finished in the 47th position, the same as the car number. In his limited career, Standridge had 23 starts, no wins, no top-fives, no top-tens, and no poles. In 1993, Kenny Wallace took on Jeff Gordon and Bobby Labonte for the rookie honors, and finished behind both of them. The following year, it was middle-brother Mike taking his shot. Wallace, also from St. Louis like his brothers, would drive the No. 90 Donlavey Racing Thunderbird with Heilig-Meyers as the sponsor. The team only made 22 of the 31 races that season but did finish 5th in the final race of the year at Atlanta where Wallace led 13 laps. While they left the first Atlanta race 46th in points, they wound up a respectable 33rd, the highest of his career. Wallace never ran a full schedule, nor won a race in his career which spanned 120 starts. He did have three top-fives and fourteen top-tens, and scored zero poles. Coming from the Waltrip homeland of Owensboro, Kentucky, Jeremy Mayfield would begin the 1994 season driving the No. 95 Shoney’s Thunderbird for the Sadler Brothers. When the series moved to the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, Mayfield moved to the No. 02 T.W. Taylor owned ride. After only four races there, Cale Yarborough Racing came calling, and gave Mayfield his best finish of the season, a 19th at the fall Rockingham race. Mayfield did not attempt five races that year, and did not qualify for an additional six, finishing his rookie season in 37th place in the standings. Mayfield would stay with Yarborough until the fall of 1996 when he would move to the No. 37 K Mart/Little Caesar’s car for Michael Kranefuss. He would stay there until the 2001 season when the team went under the ownership of Roger Penske. During that time, he would score three wins, two of them at Pocono, and one in Fontana, California. In 2004, driving for Ray Evernham, he would win the final race before the Chase at Richmond, earning his way into the Championship hunt. The following year, he would win the final race of his career, this one coming at Michigan. In 2009, after making five starts for his own team, Mayfield was indefinitely suspended by NASCAR for violating NASCAR’s substance abuse policy. Mayfield never returned to the Cup Series, and has since had troubles of both legal and personal nature. In his career Mayfield made 433 starts and scored five wins. He also had 48 top-fives, 96 top-tens, and nine poles. His highest finish in the points would be a seventh place in 1998. While the 1994 Rookie class has not yet, nor is likely to produce a Sprint Cup Series Champion as the 1993 class did, the members of the class have certainly made their mark on the sport. No rookie had won a race in their rookie year since Davey Allison in 1987, and no one would break that streak until Tony Stewart in 1999. However, this list of rookies would provide us with thirty-seven wins, two Southern 500 wins and even a Daytona 500. |