Car number 74 has started 469 races and has 0 wins, 0 poles, 7 top 5s, 73 top 10s, and 190 DNFs in the NASCAR Cup Series.
LD Austin has the most starts in #74 with 161 of his 169 career starts coming in the number. Austin raced from 1957-1962 scoring only 2 top-10 finishes and no wins.
Bobby Wawak made a few starts in #74 ever year from 1977-1987 with the most starts coming in 1980 with 19. Wawak’s career would end at the 1988 Daytona 500 when he broke several vertebrae after a crash in his qualifying race. Randy LaJoie raced his car in the 500, but Wawak was unable to return. In his retirement, Wawak became the manager of show cars for Hendrick Motorsports. He died in 2004. Wawak made 71 starts in #74; Lajoie started the number only once.
Bill “The Professor” Shirey started 68 of his 72 career races in #74 from 1969-1972. Shirey is one of the few people to have ever been disqualified from a NASCAR event. He was DQ’d for a technical infraction committed during the race at the 1972 Northern 300 at Trenton International Speedway. The exact nature of this infraction has been lost.
Tony Raines ran the #74 part time in Cup in 2002 and full time in 2003 for a total of 41 starts, with a best finish of 6th. Raines and his BACE motorsports team ran the majority of this time without sponsorship. Raines had also driven the #74 & #33 for BACE from 1999-2004 in the XFINITY Series.
In 2020, Spire Motorsports renumbered their #77 entry to #74 for the 2 races at Michigan as part of an agreement with Netflix to capture footage for the show “The Crew” with Kevin James. Reed Sorenson piloted the car for both races.
Sorenson has a total of 5 starts in #74, as he also started 3 races for “Turn One Racing” in 2012. The team also made 3 starts with Cole Whitt and 1 with Stacey Compton .
In the NASCAR XFINITY Series, BACE fielded cars for names like Jack Sprague, Johnny Benson Jr., Randy LaJoie, Tim Fedawa, Mike Wallace, Hermie Sadler, and PJ Jones. The team won the NASCAR XFINITY Series championship in 1995 with Johnny Benson, and back to back championships with Rany Lajoie in 1996-1997.
Other notable names in #74
Tom Pistone, 10 races
Derrike Cope, 9 races
Earl Brooks, 3 races
Tiny Lund, 2 races
Buck Baker, 1 race
Buddy Baker, 1 race
Chad Little, 1 race
Michael Waltrip, 1 race