BUSCH: Broken header early at Hickory gives Michael Brown the first last-place finish of his career

Michael Brown picked up the 1st last place finish of his SCRL Busch Grand National Series career in Wednesday's Bobby Isaac Memorial 200 at the Hickory Motor Speedway when his #24 Komfort Koach / Budweiser Ford fell out with header problems after completing 4 of the 20 laps.

The finish occurred in his 27th career series start. In the SCRL Busch Series, it's the 3rd for car #24 and the 6th for header issues. Across all the series in the SCRL, it's the 17th for the #24 and 24th for header issues.

Brown, who has been competing in the SCRL since the SCRL ARCA Midget Series, a series Brown scored his first career win at Eldora, would go on to score a win in the CART Series at Trenton, would sign on to complete in his first ever Busch season. Michael finished 4th in his debut at Daytona, 4th at Richmond, 30th at Rockingham, 8th at Hickory before scoring a 3rd at Martinsville. A 35th at Darlington, 21st at Orange County, 16th at Nashville, 13th at Langley, 4th at Milwaukee Mile, 36th at Dover, 13th at Charlotte, 18th at South Boston, 8th in the second Hickory event, 5th at the second Orange County event, 27th at the second South Boston event, 9th at the third Orange County before scoring his career best 2nd at the third Hickory event. A 21st at IRP would be followed by a 14th at the second Langley event, 29th at the third South Boston event, 21st at Bristol, 19th at Darlington, 115th at the second Richmond event, 4th at North Wilkesboro before finishing 31st in the last round at Charlotte.

The entry list for the 12th time this season would have only full time drivers for the final time this season as the series returned to Hickory, North Carolina in the series fourth and final stop at the 0.363 short track in Season 3.

In qualifying, Al Lagasee would score his third career busch pole of the season with a lap time of 19.992 seconds. Michael Brown would struggle in qualifying, posting a time of 20.781 seconds, 0.789 seconds behind Al's pole winning time, placing him last on the field.

On race day, Brown would trail for the first lap before he knocked the #87 Domino's Pizza Chevrolet of Dilan Ebrahimian into last on Lap 2, a position he would hold for the next two laps when the battle for last came to a sudden end. Brown, who at that point had moved up to 20th, began to lose power in Turn 1 before the car started smoking in Turn 2. Brown would slow up a few cars behind him before pulling to the inside of the track, taking last place before pulling on pit road and into the garage. The team looked over the car and found that the header was broken, and decided it wasn't worth repairing, and so the car was listed as "out" on Lap 9.

Rounding out the Bottom Five were drivers who finished on the same lap as the race leaders: 24th was the unsponsored #97 Hill Racing Pontiac of Blaine Hayes, 23rd was third Orange County last-place finisher the #5 Advance Auto Parts Buick of Chakat Whitelion, 22nd was Milwaukee Mile last-place finisher the #2 Kopy King Pontiac of Derek Greene and 21st was the aforementioned #87 of Dilan Ebrahimian.

SCRLASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is the first time the #24 has finished last in a Busch Series race at Hickory.
*This is the first time the #24 has trailed a Busch Series race since the Season 2 Darlington 250 at the Darlington Raceway when Connor Hurley's #24 Budweiser Ford fell out with camshaft problems after completing 16 of the 37 laps; 35 races ago.
*This is the first time a driver has trailed due to "header" issues since the Season 2 Miller 300 at the South Boston Speedway when Chris Kyle's #15 Wrangler Jeans Pontiac fell out with header problems after completing 10 of the 30 laps; 32 races ago.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
25) #24-Michael Brown / 4 laps / header
24) #97-Blaine Hayes / 20 laps / running
23) #5-Chakat Whitelion / 20 laps / running
22) #2-Derek Greene / 20 laps / running
21) #87-Dilan Ebrahimian / 20 laps / running