Virgin Australia LASTCAR Championship: Peter Brock narrowly avoids last-place in final race as Garth Walden crashes at Bathurst

Tuesday 30 September 2014

Peter Brock narrowly avoids last-place in final race as Garth Walden crashes at Bathurst

Garth Walden and Grant Elliot picked up both their1st, and only, last-place finish of their V8 Supercars careers when their Century 21 Ford falcon, driven at the time by Garth Walden was involved in a single-car accident after 18 of the race's 161 laps. The finish came in Garth's 4th championship start, and Grant Elliot's 2^nd race start.

Initally there were 35 cars entered in the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, however a qualifying crash for Marcus Marshall and Matthew White in the unsponsored #16 PWR holden resulted in the entry list being reduced to 34 cars.

In the race itself Garth Walden in the #24 Century 21 Ford was running near the back of the field when he clipped the kerbing coming down Skyline on lap 20, the car spun and slammed into the wall at the dipper, the car coming to rest near the racing line, forcing many cars to drive around him.

The crash prevented Peter Brock from finishing last in his final race (No I don't know how many last-place finishes Peter Brock has), when on lap 29, while running 2 laps down, Jason Plato hit the tires at the final corner, damaging the right hand side of the car. Later in the lap, Plato crashed again at the top of the mountain, doing serious damage to the right hand side of the #05 Mobil 1 holden. While Plato was limping back to the pits he was collected by John Cleland in the #21 OzEmail Broadband ford coming out of the chase, sending the #05 into the sand and the #21 over onto it's roof. All drivers involved escaped unhurt.

Rounding out the bottom five was Alain Menu and Adam Macrow in the #5 Ford Credit/Ford Performance Vehicles Ford, who retired with steering issues after 43 laps and Dale Brede and Will Davison who retired shortly afterwards for unknown reasons.

In a horrifying accident late in the race, Jim Richards in the #11 Castrol Formula R holden hit a Kangaroo on lap 112. The Kangroo died on impact, and car #11 was severely damaged in the crash. Despite this, the team managed to fix the car and they finished 13 laps down in 21^st. Kangaroo's are a common sight aroundBathurst, so accidents involving them are fairly common. And yes, the commentator's made a massive deal of it.

Note on Bathurst this weekend: It has been 10 years since Peter Brock's last race at the mountain, even if he didn't get a chance to actually race in Australia's great race.

The Bottom Five

Garth Walden	18 Laps	Crash
Jason Plato	27 Laps	Crash
Andrew Jones/John Cleland	29 Laps	Crash
Alain Menu/Adam Macrow	43 Laps	Steering
Dale Brede/Will Davison	49 Laps	Unknown

Lastcar Standings

Manufacturer Standings:

Ford: 12

Holden: 9

Driver's Standings:

Steven Ellery: 3

Glenn Seton, Max Wilson, Will Davison, Mark Skaife: 2

Rick Kelly, Mark Noske, Todd Kelly, Mark Porter, Mark Winterbottom, Steven Johnson, David Besnard, Cameron McConville, Andrew Jones, John Cleland, Grant Elliot, Garth Walden: 1

Notes on the 2004 Season:

Steven Ellery would go on to hold on to the 2004 Australian V8 LASTCAR driver's championship with 3 last-place finishes, edging out a six-way tie between Mark Skaife, Glenn Seton, Max Wilson, Will Davison, Todd Kelly and Christian D'Agostin on 2 last-place finishes each.

On 16 last-place finishes, the manufacturer Holden won the 2004 Australian V8 LASTCAR manufacturer's championship over Ford with 13.

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How Juniorgeneric defines a Last-Place finisher

Australian V8 LASTCAR'S Official Definition of a "Last-Place Finisher" (LPF)

For the purposes of the Australian V8 LASTCAR championship rankings and statistics, a "Last-Place Finisher" (LPF) is a driver(s) who, after qualifying for a V8 Supercars Championship Points-Paying race, the result must be confirmed from official sources, or unofficial sources failing that. Only one driver (or two in a endurance race) can be classified as the LPF for that race.

Meeting those requirements, the LPF can be any driver classified as such for any reason, including, but not limited to.
1) A "did not start" although it should be noted that there is a difference between my definition of "did not start" and Brock Beard's definition of "Did not Start".
For example, in Bathurst 2015 Chazz Mostert and Cameron Waters' #6 Pepsi Max Ford had a huge accident during practice that injured Mostert and all but wrote off the car. Car #6 was withdrawn, and therefore I don't count Mostert and Waters as finishing last. Under Brock Beard's definition, however, Mostert and Waters would have finished last instead of David Wall and Chris Pither.
2) An entrant who encounters an event once the race has started which prevents the driver(s) from finishing ahead of any other qualified entrants, including both DNFs and drivers who finish under power but laps down*

*Only when all the cars in the race are running ahead of the LPF

3) A decision to “start and park” the driver’s entry (Extremely rare in V8 Supercars)
(4) a disqualification handed down by V8 Supercars and/or track officials that subsequently classifies the driver(s) in the final position behind the unofficial LPF.

Australian V8 LASTCAR shall not consider the LPF as anything else, including but not limited too
1) Any DNQ's
2) Any driver's who's car withdrew before the race start.
3)The lowest-ranked driver who finishes the race under power (unless all cars finished under power, actually quite common in V8 Supercars)
4) A driver(s) who finished last initially, however post-race disqualifications usurped the spot.
5) A driver(s) who may be catagorised as finishing last for exhibition events (I may bring these back at some point in the near future, I need more accurate numbers for the events before I start them up again)
6) Anything in non-V8 Supercar Main game (again, insufficent historical data)
7) A driver who was running last when the checkered flag fell, however because they greeted the checkered flag but a drive who was in front of them at the end of the race, however was not running at the end of the race. In that instance the driver who doesn't finish the race will fall behind the driver whom is still running at the end of the race.

In the rare event where official results or a preponderance of unofficial results are later updated with more accurate information about who was the LPF for that event, Australian V8 LASTCAR rankings and statistics shall be updated to reflect that change.