PTRACER wrote: ↑4 years ago
What? How could he have no pit crew?? What's the full story?
He was racing for one of those good old “start and park” teams that were rampant through the late 90s up until the early 2010s. They’d basically start the race, run some laps with highly out of date equipment then retire for prizemoney. There were initially 48 cars entered for a 43 car field for the race, but five of those withdrew, meaning everyone who qualified made it, so it’s quite possible they weren’t even expecting to qualify. The team made 29 starts that year, with 6 of their first 17 resulting in them retiring inside the first ten laps. It appears they got more funds later in the year as they managed to finish 5 of their last 8 races, with two being DNF’s being due to an accident.
NASCAR effectively ended start and parks a few years ago when they forbid any team to retire unless they could prove they had a mechanical fault, and threatened huge fines if these rules weren’t abided by. This drastically cut the amount cars attempting races and DNQs only really occur on the superspeedway tracks now.
Ironically, the team who Ruttman raced for that day, Phoenix Racing, actually went on to win a race five years later, when Brad Keselowski famously wrecked Carl Edwards on the final lap at Talladega.
The team closed after 2013 due to a lack of sponsorship, and costs had drastically increased following the induction of the generation 6 car.