CUP: Bayne’s Crash Leaves #6 With First Cup Series Last-Place Finish Since 2004

SOURCE: Nick Wass, AP Photo

Trevor Bayne picked up the 4th last-place finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career in Sunday's FedEx 400 Benefiting Autism Speaks at the Dover International Speedway when his #6 AdvoCare Ford finished under power, but 184 laps down, having completed 221 of the race’s 405 circuits.

The finish was Bayne’s first of the season and his first in a Cup race since last summer at Indianapolis, 29 races ago.  The finish occurred in Bayne’s 71st series start.

2014 marked Bayne’s fifth and final part-time season driving for the Wood Brothers, the team which he carried to an upset win in just his second career start during the 2011 Daytona 500.  It also marked his first attempt to bring Roush-Fenway’s #6 back into the Cup Series for the first time in two seasons.  Having at last secured a full-time Cup ride for 2015, Bayne brought his XFINITY Series sponsor AdvoCare to Charlotte last October to make the field for the Bank of America 500.  Unfortunately, a different kind of upset occurred that weekend when Bayne missed the show by just over two-tenths of a second.

This year, Bayne has continued to struggle in what has been a difficult season for the entire Roush-Fenway organization.  Coming into Dover, Bayne sat just 29th in points, having finished no better than a pair of 18th-place finishes at Martinsville and Texas.  At Talladega earlier this month, Bayne was running with the leaders when his car broke loose off Turn 2, triggering a multi-car wreck that left him 41st with his first DNF of the season.  With the season one-third of the way in the books, Bayne looked to Dover for a fresh start.

At The Monster Mile, Bayne ran 33rd-fastest in the opening practice session and qualified 31st at an average speed of 157.123 mph.  He then ran 34th in Saturday’s first practice before improving to 24th in Happy Hour.

Starting last in Sunday’s race was brand new dad Landon Cassill, whose wife Katie gave birth to their first son Beckham on Wednesday.  Cassill’s #40 CRC Brakleen Chevrolet held the spot only until Lap 2, when Mike Bliss took it in his #32 CovetteParts.net Ford.  Bliss, who rebounded from his DNQ in the Coca-Cola 600 to start 42nd, was then passed on Lap 3 by the unsponsored #62 Premium Motorsports Chevrolet of Brendan Gaughan, who on Lap 14 became the first driver to lose a lap.  Bliss retook 43rd by Lap 39, when he was the first to lose a second lap, and he held the spot for most of the race’s first half.  Bliss struggled to keep pace with the rest of the field, and at one point was nudged up the track by eventual race winner Jimmie Johnson.

The first accident of the day occurred on Lap 163 when Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.’s #17 Ford EcoBoost Ford tagged the outside wall in Turn 1 due to a possible cut right-front tire.  Stenhouse slipped beneath David Gilliland, whose #38 The Pete Store Ford was 6 laps down in 42nd, then took last on Lap 168.  Stenhouse returned to the track just short of halfway 28 laps down and was still running there when a decisive accident occurred on Lap 175.

Heading down the frontstretch, Bayne’s lapped machine was bumped into a spin by the #46 Pilot / Flying J Chevrolet of Michael Annett.  Bayne slammed head-on into the inside wall while Annett hooked back to the right, collecting his teammate Justin Allgaier, last week’s last-place finisher.  Allgaier took last from Stenhouse, Jr. on Lap 201 with Bayne back to 42nd, both having completed the same number of laps.

Allgaier’s crew this time managed to make repairs before the end of the race and returned to the track on Lap 264, 90 circuits behind.  The HScott team’s efforts allowed Allgaier to pass Bayne for last after one lap, and the #6 would stay there the rest of the afternoon.  Bayne’s crew also managed to get his car back on the track with a new nose piece on Lap 355, 184 circuits behind.  Allgaier and Annett also finished under power in 42nd and 41st, respectively.

Finishing 40th was Josh Wise, whose #98 Ford was officially listed as a Premium Motorsports entry for the first time this season.  Premium entered into an association with Phil Parsons Racing as early as Talladega at the beginning of this month, when the logos on Wise’s #98 changed from Phoenix Construction, a Parsons Sponsor, to Premium’s Royal Teak Collection.  Last week at Charlotte, the font on Wise’s car number was changed twice, replacing the bold red numbers the team has carried since Mike Curb joined the program in 2012.

39th went to Matt Kenseth, who qualified 4th in his #20 Dollar General Toyota and was running inside the Top 10 for most of the race before a broken shock forced an unscheduled stop late in the race, dropping him to 21st, two laps down.  Kenseth felt a persistent vibration on the next run, and he made another stop where the crew lifted the hood.  Inside the final 30 laps, Kenseth’s crew pushed the #20 behind the wall, done for the afternoon with suspension issues.  Kenseth slipped from 7th to 11th in the standings, though his win at Bristol still all but guarantees him a spot in the Chase.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is the first last-place finish for the #6 in a Cup Series race since February 15, 2004, when Mark Martin’s #6 Viagra Ford lost an engine after 7 laps of the Daytona 500.  It is the first last-place run for the number in a Cup race at Dover since May 19, 1985 when Eddie Bierschwale picked up the first last-place finish of his career in the Budweiser 500 after his #6 U.S. Racing Chevrolet lost the engine after 73 laps.
*This was Bayne’s first last-place finish in a Cup race at Dover.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
43) #6-Trevor Bayne / 221 laps / running
42) #51-Justin Allgaier / 310 laps / running
41) #46-Michael Annett / 317 laps / running
40) #98-Josh Wise / 346 laps / electrical
39) #20-Matt Kenseth / 372 laps / suspension

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Landon Cassill (3)
2nd) Alex Bowman (2)
3rd) Justin Allgaier, A.J. Allmendinger, Trevor Bayne, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Joey Gase, Sam Hornish, Jr., Brian Scott, J.J. Yeley (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Hillman Smith Motorsports (3)
2nd) Tommy Baldwin Racing (2)
3rd) BK Racing, Go FAS Racing, Hendrick Motorsports, HScott Motorsports, JTG-Daugherty Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing / Circle Sport, Roush-Fenway Racing (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (9)
2nd) Ford (3)
3rd) Toyota (1)

XFINITY: Jeff Green Finishes Last In 400th XFINITY Series Start

SOURCE: Rubbin's Racin' Forums

Jeff Green picked up the 66th last-place finish of his NASCAR XFINITY Series career in Saturday’s Buckle Up 200 presented by Click It or Ticket at the Dover International Speedway when his unsponsored #19 TriStar Motorsports Toyota fell out with a vibration after he completed 3 of the race’s 200 laps.

The finish was Green’s series-leading sixth of the 2015 season and his second in a row.  The finish occurred in his 400th series start, a career that began on September 8, 1990 with a 22nd-place run in the Autolite 200 at Richmond while driving owner John Boatman’s #81 Pinnacle Racing Chevrolet.

Green remained in TriStar’s plain white #19 Toyota, which this week was one of 41 entries before the withdrawal of Aric Almirola’s #98 DenBeste Water Solutions / Shelby American Ford.  With all the remaining entries guaranteed a starting spot in Saturday’s race, Green ran 27th-fastest in the opening session and did not participate in Happy Hour.  He timed in 31st for the race at an average speed of 146.336 mph.

Seconds before the first caution of Saturday’s race fell for Ryan Sieg’s spin in Turn 4, Green pulled his Toyota behind the wall, done for the day.  The next two retirements came when both Morgan Shepherd in his #89 Racing With Jesus Chevrolet and Carl Long in the #40 Braille Battery / Grafoid Toyota exited after 33 laps.  Rounding out the Bottom Five were Jamie Dick and Brian Scott, who were involved in a grinding accident on Lap 64 where Scott’s crashing #2 ACME / Kraft Singles Chevrolet slid into the path of Dick’s #55 Viva Auto Group Chevrolet, eliminating both from competition.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is Green’s first XFINITY Series last-place finish at Dover since October 1, 2011, when his unsponsored #44 TriStar Motorsports Chevrolet fell out with a vibration after he completed 1 lap of the OneMain Financial 200.
*This is the first last-place finish for the #19 in an XFINITY Series race at Dover since June 3, 1989 when Steve Grissom’s #1 Texas Pete Sauces Pontiac lost the engine after 33 laps of the Budweiser 200.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #19-Jeff Green / 3 laps / vibration
39) #89-Morgan Shepherd / 33 laps / overheating
38) #40-Carl Long / 33 laps / engine
37) #55-Jamie Dick / 62 laps / crash
36) #2-Brian Scott / 63 laps / crash

2015 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Jeff Green (6)
2nd) Dexter Bean, Mike Harmon, Charles Lewandoski, Carl Long, Morgan Shepherd, Derek White (1)

2015 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) TriStar Motorsports (7)
2nd) Motorsports Business Management (2)
3rd) King Autosport, Mike Harmon Racing, Shepherd Racing Ventures (1)

2015 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Toyota (8)
2nd) Chevrolet, Dodge (2)

TRUCKS: Jennifer Jo Cobb Furious After Early Dover Wreck

SOURCE: FOX Sports 1, NASCAR.com

Jennifer Jo Cobb picked up the 5th last-place finish of her NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career in Friday’s Lucas Oil 200 at the Dover International Speedway when her #10 POW-MIAFamilies.org / Driven2Honor.org Chevrolet was taken out in a single-truck crash after she completed 12 of the race’s 200 laps.

The finish was Jo Cobb’s first of the 2015 season and her first as a driver in the Truck Series since Martinsville on April 6, 2013, when her #10 Driven2Honor.org RAM burned the clutch after 22 laps of the Kroger 250, 48 races ago.  The finish occurred in her 99th series start - this Friday in Texas, she is expected to make her 100th.

Jo Cobb, an owner-driver in the series since 2010, has continued to make the most with limited resources.  To make ends meet, Jo Cobb has run for every manufacturer in the series except Toyota, carried a number of sponsors from small companies and crowd-funded efforts, and has at times entered a second truck, #0, to collect extra funding.  Her best career finish remains a 6th-place run in the 2011 season opener at Daytona, though last year she earned her second-best finish, a 13th at Kansas.  She also reduced her DNQs from 5 to just 1 and improved from 25th in points to 16th.

This year, Jo Cobb has so far made every race in 2015 and has three times finished inside the Top 20.  Coming into Dover, she sat 14th in points after her second-straight 19th-place finish at Charlotte.

Jo Cobb’s truck was one of 36 entries on the preliminary list, including her team truck the #0 driven by defending LASTCAR Truck Series Champion Caleb Roark.  However, by race weekend, Jo Cobb had withdrawn Roark’s entry, and Mike Affarano and James Buescher’s trucks were pulled from the list as well.  Jo Cobb ran 32nd-fastest of the 33 remaining trucks in the lone practice session, then secured the 30th starting spot on Owner Points.  The lone DNQ was Kyle Martel, whose #59 Hanover Cold Storage / Finish Line Express Chevrolet was faster than the final two qualified drivers.

Current 2015 LASTCAR Truck Series leader Norm Benning started 32nd in his #6 Norm Benning Racing Chevrolet and was among the first of the trucks to be lapped.  On the 13th circuit, the leaders had also passed Jo Cobb’s #10, which was running 28th and trying to stay clear of the faster trucks.  With 2nd-place Tyler Reddick trying to catch then-leader Ryan Blaney off Turn 4, Reddick made contact with the rear of Jo Cobb’s truck, sending the #10 head-on into the inside wall.

Jo Cobb climbed from her truck uninjured, but angry, gesturing at the #19 as it rolled by under caution.  Adding insult to injury, by walking onto the track after her crash, Jo Cobb may become the first NASCAR driver penalized under the rule instituted after last year’s tragic accident involving Kevin Ward, Jr.  Reddick went on to win the race and expressed sympathy for Jo Cobb in the post-race press conference.

Finishing 31st on Friday was Tyler Tanner, who was making his 5th series start in Mike Mittler’s #36 Mittler Bros Machine & Tool Chevrolet.  Mittler’s #36, apparently a “start-and-park” entry to help fund the team’s primary #63, ended up only a few spots behind his teammate.  Lead driver Justin Jennings lost his #63 Mittler Bros Machine & Tool Chevrolet in a Lap 33 crash triggered by rookie Jesse Little, whose #97 Carolina Nut Co. Toyota crossed the nose of Mason Mingus’ unsponsored #15 Billy Boat Motorsports Chevrolet on the backstretch.  All three trucks were unable to return to the race.  Benning, the last-place starter, finished 26th after suspension issues.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*While the #10 had not finished last in a Truck Series race since Jo Cobb’s Martinsville finish in 2013, it had not finished last in a Truck Series race at Dover since May 13, 2011, when Chris Lafferty ran Jo Cobb’s #10 DrivenMale.com / DriverBoutique.com Chevrolet 2 laps before engine issues in the Lucas Oil 200.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
32) #10-Jennifer Jo Cobb / 12 laps / crash
31) #36-Tyler Tanner / 15 laps / vibration
30) #97-Jesse Little / 32 laps / crash
29) #15-Mason Mingus / 32 laps / crash
28) #63-Justin Jennings / 33 laps / crash

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Norm Benning (2)
2nd) Jennifer Jo Cobb, Travis Kvapil, Justin Marks, Caleb Roark (1)

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing, Norm Benning Racing (2)
2nd) MAKE Motorsports, Win-Tron Racing (1)

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (5)
2nd) Toyota (1)

CUP: Despite Team’s Efforts, Justin Allgaier Scores First Cup Series Last-Place Finish

SOURCE: NASCAR

Justin Allgaier picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway when his #51 Brandt Chevrolet was involved in a single-car crash that ended his race after he completed 135 of the race’s 400 laps.  The finish occurred in Allgaier’s 51st series start.

While this is Allgaier’s first last-place finish in Cup, the Illinois driver has two other last-place finishes in his eight career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts.  The first came at Kansas on July 2, 2005 when he crashed after 68 laps of the O’Reilly Auto Parts 250.  The second came the following season on July 8, 2006, when he wrecked after one lap of the Built Ford Tough 225 presented by Greater Cincinnati Ford Dealers.  Both finishes came while driving the #63 Dave Porter Truck Sales Ford for longtime series owner Mike Mittler.

Allgaier and the HScott Motorsports team fielding his bright orange #51 Chevrolets have both been looking to make a name for themselves in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.  Allgaier, the 2008 ARCA Racing Series Champion, scored two of his three XFINITY Series wins with Turner-Scott Motorsports (TSM).  A rift developed between TSM partners Steve Turner and Harry Scott, Jr., leading to Scott’s decision in 2013 to buy Phoenix Racing from James Finch to form HScott Motorsports, a new single-car Cup Series team.  Scott tabbed Allgaier to run for Rookie of the Year as HScott’s full-time Cup driver in 2014.  HScott’s single car would carry logos from Brandt Agriculture, Allgaier’s XFINITY Series sponsor.

Allgaier struggled in his first full Cup season, finishing 29th in points with six DNFs and an average finish of 25.9.  He also missed the fall race at Talladega when he was one of several drivers who failed to complete a qualifying lap in time.  However, he finished inside the Top 20 in four of his final five starts of the season, including a pair of then-career-best 15th-place runs at Charlotte and Homestead, setting the stage for 2015.  This season, Scott would have a teammate for Allgaier - fellow 2014 rookie Michael Annett, who moved from Tommy Baldwin Racing to run HScott’s new #46 Pilot Travel Centers Chevrolet.

Coming into Sunday’s race, Allgaier was still 28th in points, but now had a career-best 8th-place finish at Bristol, where he overcame a spin with five laps to go.  Annett, a career-best 13th in the #46 team’s Daytona 500 debut, missed the second race of the year at Atlanta, but acquired a ride from Circle Sport, allowing him to stay 33rd in points.

Both Allgaier and Annett arrived at Charlotte among the 48 drivers looking to make the 43-car field for the Memorial Day classic.  Like all the other entries, the windshield banner on Allgaier’s #51 carried the name of a military serviceperson as part of the sport’s #NASCARSalutes program.  Allgaier paid tribute to fallen U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant Adam K. Ginett.  Sgt. Ginett, a 29-year-old airman of the 31st Civil Engineer Squadron, lost his life in an explosion near Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan on January 19, 2010.

Allgaier put up the 33rd-fastest time in Thursday’s opening practice, then qualified 35th at an average speed of 189.221 mph.  He continued to make gains in Saturday’s final two practice sessions with the 24th-fastest run in the second session and 29th in Happy Hour.

Sunday’s race provided another unusual LASTCAR battle.  For the first 139 laps of the 400-lap affair, the 43rd spot belonged exclusively to last-place starter Alex Kennedy, who was making his first start in the 600 driving Circle Sport’s #33 HonorandRemember.org Chevrolet.  On Lap 21, Kennedy was the first driver to lose a lap, and by Lap 78 he’d lost another two.  However, with all 43 drivers still running and only a handful of other drivers running a lap down, last place was still very much up for grabs.

On Lap 136, A.J. Allmendinger was struggling to keep pace after his #47 Scott Products Chevrolet made contact with the outside wall when the caution flew for the decisive incident of the night.  Allgaier, running 30th at the time, blew a right-front tire in Turn 3, sending his #51 hard into the outside wall.  Under the resulting third caution of the night, Allgaier managed to make it to pit road despite severe damage to the right side of his Chevrolet, and the crew took him behind the wall to try and get him back on the race track.  With such low attrition to that point, Allgaier quickly took last on Lap 140.  Although the team didn’t realize it at the time, he would not relinquish the spot the rest of the night.

Nearing the three-quarters mark of the race, back-to-back incidents claimed a pair of frontrunners who seemed poised to take 43rd from Allgaier.  The first was Jimmie Johnson, whose struggles from last week’s All-Star Race continued.  An ill-handling #48 Lowe’s Patriotic Chevrolet spun in Turn 4 on Lap 91, then flew back to the 5th spot on Lap 274 only to spin in the exact same spot, this time colliding with the inside wall.  Then, on Lap 282, Ryan Blaney’s #21 Motorcraft / Quick Lane Tire & Auto Center Ford lost an engine while inside the Top 20.

However, by the time both Johnson and Blaney pulled to the garage, Allgaier had still not returned to the track and, in fact, had mathematically clinched 43rd spot.  Allgaier was 137 laps down at the time of Johnson’s crash and 144 back when Blaney’s engine let go.  Even if Allgaier returned to the track immediately when either driver retired, and if both Johnson and Blaney failed to complete another lap, the #48 and #21 could only finish 126 and 119 laps down, respectively.  A video interview with Allgaier indicates this is likely why the #51 never returned to the track in the final 100 laps.

While Blaney’s engine left him 42nd at race’s end, Johnson returned to the track on Lap 299 and finished under power, 30 laps in arrears, in 40th.  Johnson’s run allowed him to pass both Blaney and the #55 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota of David Ragan, which lost an engine after 353 laps.  Rounding out the Bottom Five was Landon Casill, 25 laps down and under power in his #40 Snap Fitness Chevrolet.  Cassill, the current LASTCAR Cup Series leader, ended his night with a 14-mile run from the speedway to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was the first last-place finish for the #51 in a Sprint Cup Series race since June 16, 2013, when Bobby Labonte’s #51 Phoenix Racing Chevrolet was involved in a two-car crash after he completed 5 laps of the Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan, 70 races ago.  It is also the first last-place finish for HScott Motorsports since Harry Scott, Jr. acquired Phoenix Racing in late 2013.
*This is the first last-place finish for the #51 in a Cup Series race at Charlotte since October 16, 2004, when Tony Raines’ #51 Marathon Oil / Chase Chevrolet crashed after he completed 2 laps of the UAW-GM Quality 500.
*Allgaier is the first driver to score his first Cup Series last-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600 since Ryan Newman wrecked his pole-winning #02 Alltel Ford while leading on Lap 11 on May 26, 2002.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
43) #51-Justin Allgaier / 135 laps / crash
42) #21-Ryan Blaney / 281 laps / engine
41) #55-David Ragan / 353 laps / engine
40) #48-Jimmie Johnson / 370 laps / running
39) #40-Landon Cassill / 375 laps / running

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Landon Cassill (3)
2nd) Alex Bowman (2)
3rd) Justin Allgaier, A.J. Allmendinger, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Joey Gase, Sam Hornish, Jr., Brian Scott, J.J. Yeley (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) #40-Hillman Smith Motorsports (3)
2nd) #7-Tommy Baldwin Racing (2)
3rd) #9-Richard Petty Motorsports, #23-BK Racing, #32-Go FAS Racing, #33-Richard Childress Racing / Circle Sport, #47-JTG-Daugherty Racing, #51-HScott Motorsports, #88-Hendrick Motorsports (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (9)
2nd) Ford (2)
3rd) Toyota (1)

XFINITY: Jeff Green Scores 70th NASCAR Last-Place Finish

SOURCE: Rubbin's Racin' Forums

Jeff Green picked up the 65th last-place finish of his NASCAR XFINITY Series career in Saturday’s Hisense 300 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway when his unsponsored #19 TriStar Motorsports Toyota fell out with a vibration after he completed 2 of the race’s 200 laps.

The finish was Green’s 5th of the season, his first since Richmond, three races ago, and came in his 399th series start.  It is also Green’s 70th last-place finish across NASCAR’s top three divisions - the most of all drivers.  In the all-time standings, Green now stands 31 finishes ahead of second-place Joe Nemechek.

The car Green drove at Charlotte wasn’t the same #10 he carried to his previous four last-place finishes in 2015, but instead the #19 previously driven by teammate Mike Bliss.  Bliss joined TriStar’s XFINITY Series team after he left Curtis Key’s program at the end of 2010.  His best finish in four full seasons with TriStar has been an 8th in the July 2012 race at Daytona.  While the Daytona finish came while driving TriStar’s #44, Bliss has started the majority of his TriStar races in the #19, a car which has run full races despite a frequent lack of sponsorship.

Following Bliss’ 34th-place finish at Talladega earlier this month, TriStar Motorsports welcomed back veteran Eric McClure, who had originally left to sign with JGL Racing for 2015.  On May 8, after finishing no better than 17th in the Daytona opener, McClure and his #24 Reynolds Wrap Toyota rejoined TriStar at Iowa, forcing his old team to reduce its field of 6 cars to 5.  The decision was apparently made to scratch Green’s #10 and to convert Bliss’ #19 into Green’s new “start-and-park” entry, leaving Bliss without a ride.  The net result was a 39th-place run for the #19 at Iowa, where driver Charles Lewandoski was edged by Carl Long for the last-place finish.

Green, who during the Iowa weekend was participating in the Sprint Showdown, returned to the same Charlotte track to attempt both the Cup and XFNITY Series races.  On Thursday, Green’s #30 The Motorsports Group Chevrolet was the second-slowest of the five drivers who missed the race.  For Saturday’s XFINITY event, however, Green was able to rely on his Past Champion’s Provisional to make the show with a speed of 175.075 mph, bumping Derrike Cope and Mike Harmon from the field.

While Green had run 23rd and 32nd-fastest in the weekend’s two practice sessions, he still pulled behind the wall after just 2 laps on Saturday, securing the first last-place finish of the year for TriStar’s #19.  He this time beat Iowa last-placers Motorsports Business Management, whose #40 Braille Battery / Grafoid Toyota was this week driven by Timmy Hill, the young driver making his first series start since Richmond.

38th place went to Jamie Dick, who on Lap 48 lost the engine on his #55 Viva Auto Group Chevrolet entering Turn 1, then spun and backed into the outside wall.  37th went to B.J. McLeod, who gave Rick Ware’s #15 BYB Extreme Fighting Series Chevrolet its fourth bottom-five finish in its last five starts.  Rounding out the Bottom Five was the second Motorsports Business Management car of Carl Long, who this time ran a bright green #13 Jaret’s Angels / JDRF Dodge.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is the first last-place finish for the #19 in an XFINITY Series race since September 29, 2001, when Ed Berrier’s #19 Tiger Saws & Blades Chevrolet owned by Cavin Councilor was involved in a single-car crash that ended his race after 10 laps of the inaugural Mr. Goodcents 300 at the Kansas Speedway.  Curiously, Jeff Green won that race - his last in the Greg Pollex-owned #10 Nestle NesQuik machine that carried Green to his 2000 series title.
*This is Green’s first last-place finish in an XFINITY Series race at Charlotte since October 11, 2013, when his unsponsored #10 TriStar Motorsports Toyota also fell out with a vibration after 2 laps of the Dollar General 300.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #19-Jeff Green / 2 laps / vibration
39) #40-Timmy Hill / 40 laps / electrical
38) #55-Jamie Dick / 45 laps / crash
37) #15-B.J. McLeod / 58 laps / fuel pump
36) #13-Carl Long / 129 laps / engine

2015 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Jeff Green (5)
2nd) Dexter Bean, Mike Harmon, Charles Lewandoski, Carl Long, Morgan Shepherd, Derek White (1)

2015 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) #10-TriStar Motorsports (5)
2nd) #40-Motorsports Business Management (2)
3rd) #74-Mike Harmon Racing, #19-TriStar Motorsports, #89-Shepherd Racing Ventures, #92-King Autosport (1)

2015 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Toyota (7)
2nd) Chevrolet, Dodge (2)

CUP: Danica Patrick First Chevrolet To Finish Last In All-Star Race Since 2005

SOURCE: Rubbin's Racin' Forums

Danica Patrick finished last in Saturday’s NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway when her #10 Mobil 1 / Aspen Dental Chevrolet finished under power, but 32 laps down, having completed 78 of the race’s 110 laps.

Now in her fourth season in NASCAR’s top division - and her last with longtime sponsor GoDaddy - Patrick is still looking to find consistency.  During her first full seasons in 2013 and 2014, she’d finished just 27th and 28th in points, earning four top-ten finishes and a pole in the 2013 Daytona 500.  Last fall at Talladega, she led 7 laps and was out front with 15 circuits remaining before a late caution shuffled her back to 19th.  This year, after 11 events, she sits 17th in points with two more Top Tens - a season-best 7th at Martinsville and a 9th at Bristol.  In 93 career Cup starts, she has now earned more top-ten finishes than any other female driver in NASCAR history.

On Friday, Patrick came to Charlotte as one of the 29 entrants in the Sprint Showdown as well as one of the top vote-getters in the Sprint Fan Vote.  She ran 5th-fastest in the event’s lone practice session and timed in 8th at an average speed of 187.996 mph.  In the race itself, she came home 10th in the first segment and 9th in the second, but as the cars rolled onto pit road, it was announced she had won the fan vote and would transfer into Saturday’s main event with segment winners Greg Biffle and Clint Bowyer.  Unfortunately, Patrick’s engine soured after the Showdown, and she would have to fall to the rear for Saturday’s race.

On Saturday, Patrick qualified 6th without incurring any penalties, turning in a time of 112.893 seconds - just over a second and a half behind polesitter Denny Hamlin’s 111.227.  When the race began, Patrick fell to the rear, joining Kevin Harvick, who’d suffered a 5-second penalty for a pit road violation.  While Harvick climbed through the field quickly, Patrick advanced much slower, though by Lap 3, both had shuffled Patrick’s owner Tony Stewart and his #14 Bass Pro Shops / Arctic Cat Chevrolet to the 20th and final spot in the field.

Stewart held the last spot until the end of the 25-lap Segment 1, when Greg Biffle needed repairs to the rear of his #16 Ortho Ford following two early hits to the outside wall.  Biffle, who started outside-pole, held the spot all the way until Patrick took it midway through Segment 3.  On the 9th of the segment’s 25 laps, Patrick was running 16th when her Chevrolet trailed smoke entering the third corner, forcing a quick dive to pit road.  Though originally appearing to be another lost engine, it was found to be a busted left-front hub.  Patrick returned to the track 32 laps down on Lap 90 - 15 laps into Segment 4 - and finished the race under power.

The rest of the field finished the race under power and on the lead lap with Stewart finishing next-to-last, 13.4 seconds behind race winner Denny Hamlin at the finish.  Rounding out the Bottom Five were Ryan Newman in the #31 CAT / Quicken Loans Chevrolet, Carl Edwards in the #19 ARRIS Toyota, and defending All-Star Jamie McMurray in the #1 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is the fourth time the car #10 has finished last in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race.  The other drivers were Greg Sacks in 1986 (#10 DiGard Chevrolet), Ricky Rudd in 1999 (#10 Tide Ford), and Johnny Benson, Jr. in 2003 (#10 Valvoline Pontiac).  Patrick is also the first driver since Sacks to finish last in the All-Star Race while still under power.
*This is the first time Chevrolet has finished last in the All-Star Race since 2005, when Martin Truex, Jr.’s #1 Bass Pro Shops / Tracker Boats Chevrolet was involved in a multi-car crash after 35 laps.  Truex was also that year's fan vote winner.
*Patrick is the first female driver to finish last in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
20) #10-Danica Patrick / 78 laps / running
19) #14-Tony Stewart / 110 laps / running
18) #31-Ryan Newman / 110 laps / running
17) #19-Carl Edwards / 110 laps / running
16) #1-Jamie McMurray / 110 laps / running

CUP: Mike Bliss Exits Early In Sprint Showdown

SOURCE: Getty Images, NASCAR

Mike Bliss finished last in Friday’s Sprint Showdown at the Charlotte Motor Speedway when his #32 Alpha Canvas Race Covers / JoeUSA.com Ford fell out with a vibration after he completed 6 of the race’s 40 laps.

The Showdown was Bliss’ first race in the #32 Ford fielded by Archie St. Hilaire and Frankie Stoddard since Bristol, when he tied his season-best finish of 31st at Atlanta.  Bliss had not suffered a DNF in any of his points-race starts this season, but he’d not finished on the lead lap, either, and he missed the show at Las Vegas.  The team’s two best finishes of the season came with Bobby Labonte at the restrictor-plate tracks - a 24th in the Daytona 500 and a 27th at Talladega - and Joey Gase scored the team’s only last-place run of the year at Richmond.

This year’s Showdown was to have the biggest field since 2009 with 30 cars on the preliminary entry list.  However, after the withdrawal of Hillman Racing’s second car #39 with driver Travis Kvapil, the 29-car field would instead equal the field in 2010.  Bliss ran a solid 14th-fastest in Friday’s lone practice session and qualified 18th at an average speed of 185.414 mph.  Bliss looked to help his team prepare for the Coca-Cola 600 in an event he came just short of winning a decade ago before Brian Vickers spun him out of the lead in the final corner.

Starting last in Friday’s field was Tanner Berryhill, who was making his first laps in Cup since his DNQ at Phoenix in March.  Friday, as at Phoenix, Berryhill was driving the #66 Chevrolet fielded by Premium Motorsports, a car which had not made an appearance at the track since the team withdrew from the field at Fontana.  However, by the end of Lap 1, Bliss had already taken last from Berryhill, and he pulled behind the wall under green on Lap 7.

Finishing next-to-last was current LASTCAR Cup Series leader Landon Cassill, whose #40 Snap Fitness Chevrolet slowed on the back straightaway late in the first 20-lap segment of the Showdown and exited at the halfway break with engine trouble.  During the ensuing caution, Alex Bowman retired his unsponsored black #7 Tommy Baldwin Racing Chevrolet with electrical issues.

Rounding out the Bottom Five were two drivers who finished under power, but laps down - Michael Annett, who lost three laps in his #46 Pilot / Flying J Chevrolet, and Kyle Larson, whose thrilling 3-wide battle for the lead with Martin Truex, Jr. and Clint Bowyer was followed by late misfortune.  Still fighting in the Top 5, Larson was bumped by Sam Hornish, Jr. In Turn 3 and made contact with the outside wall, forcing him to pit for repairs.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is the second time in three years that the #32 has finished last in the Sprint Showdown.  The number and team most recently trailed the field in 2013 when Timmy Hill’s OXY Water Ford overheated after he completed 6 laps.
*Bliss is the second-straight driver to finish last in the Showdown with “vibration” as the official listed reason.  In 10 of the last 15 runnings of the Showdown, the last-place finisher was taken out in a crash.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
29) #32-Mike Bliss / 6 laps / vibration
28) #40-Landon Cassill / 20 laps / engine
27) #7-Alex Bowman / 22 laps / electrical
26) #46-Michael Annett / 37 laps / running
25) #42-Kyle Larson / 38 laps / running / led 1 lap

XFINITY: Carl Long Scores First XFINITY Series Last-Place Run Since 2006

Long's car on Sunday
SOURCE: Rubbin's Racin' Forums

Carl Long picked up the 2nd last-place finish of his NASCAR XFINITY Series career in Sunday’s 3M 250 at the Iowa Speedway when his #40 Braille Battery / Grafoid Toyota fell out with electrical issues before he could complete any of the race’s 259 laps.

The finish was Long’s first of the season and his first in the series since August 5, 2006, when his #26 lovefifi.com Chevrolet fielded by Keith Coleman also fell out with electrical issues after 36 laps of the Kroger 200 Benefitting Riley Hospital for Children at Lucas Oil Raceway, 292 races ago.  Sunday’s finish occurred in Long’s 85th series start.

The car Long took to his only other XFINITY Series
Last-Place Finish in 2006
SOURCE: CarlLongMotorsports.com

A part-time driver in NASCAR’s top three divisions since 1998, Long is one of the sport’s most prolific underdogs, the obstacles he’s had to overcome.  Driving for the late Thee Dixon, Long sped his way into what was to be his first Cup start in the 2000 Coca-Cola 600, but graciously sold his ride to Darrell Waltrip, who had failed to qualify for what was to be his final start in the event.  His last-place finish at the Lucas Oil Raceway in 2006 came three weeks before his 23rd, and to date, most recent start in a Cup Series points race when he finished 41st in the Sharpie 500 at Bristol driving the #34 for Front Row Motorsports, then a single-car team in just its second season on the circuit.

More than this, Long is known for the particularly steep obstacles he’s had to overcome in the sport.  In 2004, Long was one of several “field-fillers” - underfunded competitors with the thankless task of keeping the field at 43 cars during a recession.  At the season’s second race at Rockingham, Long was involved in a spectacular tumbling crash down the backstretch that destroyed his outdated #46 Dodge.  The wreck inspired a crowd-funded effort which got him back to the track in a new car later that season.  By 2009, Long was running his own single-car team, but after he lost his second engine of the weekend in the Sprint Showdown, leaving him last in the non-points race, NASCAR handed down record-setting penalties, arguing that his blown motor was too large.  Long’s team closed soon after, and the journeyman driver has struggled to pay off the fine ever since.

In the six years since the Sprint Showdown penalty, Long has run a handful of races in NASCAR’s lower two divisions for a variety of different teams, including 10 Truck Series races for Daisy Ramirez in 2010 and a career-high 25 XFINITY Series rounds for Rick Ware in 2011.  Though relegated to a “start-and-park” driver for the majority of those starts, he scored a career-best 11th-place run in Ramirez’s truck at Dover in 2010.  This year, he drives for Derek White’s start-up team Motorsports Business Management (MBM).  One of the cars in MBM’s stables is a bright blue and orange Dodge resembling the car Long flipped in 2004.

At Iowa, Long was one of 41 cars on the preliminary entry list.  While teammate John Jackson drove the blue #13 Dodge, Long was assigned a black Toyota without the manufacturer’s emblem on the nose since the team was still running the pre-2015 Camry body.  After the withdrawal of Atlanta last-placer Morgan Shepherd, Long, Jackson, and the rest of the field were guaranteed a starting spot in the race.

Long was one of 7 drivers who didn’t participate in Saturday’s first practice session, and his #40 remained off the track in Happy Hour while he instead helped Jackson practice MBM’s #13.  Long’s #40 turned just a single green-flag lap all weekend - his qualifying lap of 122.716 mph, good enough for the 38th starting spot based on owner points.

Long and Jackson were among the six drivers sent to the rear before the start of Sunday’s race, a group which included Erik Jones, switched into the #20 Interstate Batteries Toyota after teammate Drew Herring put his car on pole in qualifying.  The race was barely a few seconds old when Long’s car stalled on the inside of the track in Turn 3, bringing out the first caution of the afternoon.  Long’s car was brought behind the wall without making it back to the stripe, and while the leaderboard indicated Long was “off” for at least the first 75 laps, the team couldn’t get him back on the track, and he retained the last spot.

39th went to Talladega last-placer Charles Lewandoski, this time in the unsponored #19 entry for TriStar Motorsports.  TriStar’s #10 was absent from the Iowa track, perhaps because on Friday regular driver Jeff Green was running his first Sprint Showdown since 2008 in The Motorsports Group’s #30.  Green came home 20th in the qualifying race’s field of 29.

38th went to Brennan Poole and the #42 DC Solar Chevrolet.  Poole qualified 12th and was chasing down the leaders when the sliding #28 Texas 28 Spirits Stage Toyota of J.J. Yeley made contact with him on Lap 11, sending Poole into the outside wall.  Poole returned to the track 113 laps down around Lap 130 and on Lap 152 wrecked Yeley at the same point on the track.  Poole was parked by NASCAR, ending his run after 39 laps.

Rounding out the Bottom Five were Harrison Rhodes, whose JD Motorsports #0 had suspension issues after 42 laps, and B.J. McLeod, who followed-up his next-to-last place run in Friday’s Truck Series race at Charlotte with a 36th in Rick Ware’s #15 BYB Extreme Fighting Series Chevrolet.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*Long is the first driver to finish last in an XFINITY Series race without completing a single lap since Jeffery Earnhardt’s first-lap engine issue on his #4 JD Motorsports Chevrolet last November at Phoenix.  No driver had ever finished last in an XFINITY race at Iowa without completing at least one lap.
*This is the first last-place finish for both Long and the #40 in an XFINITY Series race at Iowa.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #40-Carl Long / 0 laps / electrical
39) #19-Charles Lewandoski / 4 laps / brakes
38) #42-Brennan Poole / 39 laps / parked
37) #0-Harrison Rhodes / 42 laps / suspension
36) #15-B.J. McLeod / 68 laps / brakes

2015 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Jeff Green (4)
2nd) Dexter Bean, Mike Harmon, Charles Lewandoski, Carl Long, Morgan Shepherd, Derek White (1)

2015 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) #10-TriStar Motorsports (5)
2nd) #40-Motorsports Business Management (2)
3rd) #74-Mike Harmon Racing, #89-Shepherd Racing Ventures, #92-King Autosport (1)

2015 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Toyota (6)
2nd) Chevrolet, Dodge (2)

TRUCKS: Norm Benning Takes Early 2015 LASTCAR Truck Series Lead

SOURCE: NASCAR Media

Norm Benning picked up the 7th last-place finish of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career in Friday’s North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway when his unsponsored #6 Norm Benning Racing Chevrolet fell out with suspension issues after he completed 9 of the race’s 139 laps.

The finish was Benning’s series-leading second of the 2015 season and his first since Atlanta, three races ago.  It was also his fourth-straight DNF and occurred in Benning’s 142nd series start.

At Charlotte, Benning was one of 33 drivers on the preliminary entry list.  Two more drivers were added by the first practice - B.J. McLeod in the #45 Tilted Kilt Chevrolet, a second entry for owner Christopher Long, and Justin Jennings in a second truck for Mike Mittler, the #36 Mittler Bros. Machine & Tools Chevrolet.  McLeod, Jennings, and Benning all made the race while Brandon Brown, Ryan Ellis, and Todd Peck were sent home.  Benning was the slowest in both practice sessions and secured the final starting spot on owner points, having turned a qualifying lap of just 153.183 mph.

Before the green flag fell on Friday’s race, Benning was joined by front row starters Kasey Kahne and Erik Jones, who were both sent to the rear for unapproved adjustments and missing the driver’s meeting, respectively.  Both passed Benning on the first lap and would eventually settle the finish between each other in one of the series’ closest finishes.

Benning, meanwhile, began to lose ground to the rest of the field.  By Lap 3, Benning was 15.562 seconds behind the leaders and 6 seconds behind 31st-place driver Wendell Chavous in Premium Motorsports’ #94.  On Lap 5, Korbin Forrister’s #08 Tilted Kilt / Halcyon Chevrolet fell behind Benning and was the first to be lapped.  Benning retook the spot after 8 laps when he pulled behind the wall.  He returned on Lap 17, but ran just one more circuit before pulling out of the race for good.  Forrister finished 29th with steering box issues following his spin through the infield grass on Lap 21.

Between Benning and Forrister were both late entries of McLeod and Jennings.  Rounding out the Bottom Five was Martinsville last-placer Travis Kvapil, whose lapped #50 Burnie Grill Chevrolet brought out the race’s second caution with a crash in Turn 3.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is the first last-place finish for both Benning and the #6 in a Truck Series race at Charlotte.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
32) #6-Norm Benning / 9 laps / suspension
31) #45-B.J. McLeod / 26 laps / electrical
30) #36-Justin Jennings / 33 laps / electrical
29) #08-Korbin Forrister / 38 laps / steering box
28) #50-Travis Kvapil / 62 laps / crash

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Norm Benning (2)
2nd) Travis Kvapil, Justin Marks, Caleb Roark (1)

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) #6-Norm Benning Racing (2)
2nd) #0-Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing, #1-MAKE Motorsports, #35-Win-Tron Racing (1)

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (4)
2nd) Toyota (1)

CUP: Alex Bowman’s Mechanical Issues Hold Him To Second Last-Place Run of 2015

SOURCE: Getty Images, NASCAR

Alex Bowman picked up the 3rd last-place finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career in Saturday’s Spongebob Squarepants 400 at the Kansas Speedway when his #7 Accell Construction Chevrolet fell out with a vibration after he completed 125 of the race’s 267 laps.

The finish was Bowman’s 2nd of the 2015 season, his first since Las Vegas, 8 races ago, and occurred in his 46th series start.  He now holds 2nd in the 2015 LASTCAR Cup Series Championship, one finish behind leader Landon Cassill.

Last Sunday at Talladega, Bowman finished a season-best 16th, rebounding from his lone DNQ of the season in the Daytona 500 after his fast car was wrecked in his Budweiser Duel.  Between his last-place run at Las Vegas and last Sunday, Bowman had finished no better than 20th, ironically his only race this year without any sponsorship on his #7 Chevrolet.  Rumors arose last month that Bowman’s team owner Tommy Baldwin will merge his organization with BK Racing, but as of this writing, there has been no official word.

At Kansas, Bowman carried sponsorship from longtime Baldwin supporters Accell Construction, Inc.  His black-and-red Chevrolet ran 35th-fastest of the 44 entrants in the opening session, 37th in Happy Hour, then scored the 36th starting spot at an average speed of 187.559 mph.  The lone DNQ of the race was Brendan Gaughan, who for the fifth time six races was unable to break the Top 36 in Premium Motorsports’ #62 Adam’s Mark Chevrolet.

The 43rd spot in Saturday’s race belonged to Michael Annett and the #46 Allstate Peterbilt Group Chevrolet for HScott Motorsports.  By the end of Lap 1, Annett moved past 41st-place starter Landon Cassill, whose Carsforsale.com Chevrolet trailed the field until Lap 5, when Brett Moffitt took it in his first start for Front Row Motorsports since Phoenix.  On Lap 8, Moffitt’s #34 Dockside Logistics Ford was edging ahead of Matt DiBenedetto’s #83 Burger King Toyota when two of DiBenedetto’s BK Racing teammates tangled on the backstretch.

First to spin in the first caution of the night was rookie Jeb Burton, whose #26 Maxim Fantasy Sports Toyota looped down to the inside of the backstretch.  Moments later, J.J. Yeley, whose silver #23 Dr. Pepper Toyota apparently made contact with Burton, lost control in Turn 3 and backed into the outside wall.  Although Yeley’s team had to apply several large strips of black tape to the rear of the #23, it was Burton who first lost a lap to race leader Joey Logano, dropping Burton to last.

Bowman’s troubles began on Lap 19, when his #7 slowed suddenly from the 30th spot and dropped to the apron in the tri-oval.  The car re-fired by the entrance of Turn 1, apparently pointing to an ignition problem, but within two laps, he was on pit road with smoke in the cockpit.  Unable to diagnose the situation, Bowman’s car, now 43rd, was pushed behind the wall.  Although he would return to the speedway until Lap 112, now 92 laps in arrears, his team apparently benefitted from the two-hour rain delay which began after Burton spun once more on Lap 95.  Burton’s two spins either caused or made worse a rear gear issue that sent his #26 behind the wall after 127 laps, and after returning to run 2 more circuits on Lap 170, he was in the garage once more.  This gave Bowman an opportunity to slowly reel in Burton for 42nd.  However, first Bowman and then Burton retired their cars for good in the final laps, leaving them in the final two spots.

As Bowman and Burton attempted to complete the race, the rest of the Bottom Five shuffled dramatically in the final 80 laps, lifting the struggling cars of David Ragan, Michael McDowell, J.J. Yeley, and others outside of the final few spots.  41st ended up going to Denny Hamlin, whose #11 FedEx Freight Toyota spun out, then cut down a right-rear tire that caused him to crash on Lap 209, dropping him to the Bottom Five just one lap later.  40th went to Erik Jones, whose first official start in the #18 M&M’s Red Nose Day Toyota was punctuated by several daring moves that kept him in the Top 10 all night long - until, while running 6th, his machine lost control and nosed into the outside wall.  39th went to the #14 Bass Pro Shops / Mobil 1 Chevrolet of Tony Stewart - his 4th bottom-five finish of 2015 - his car damaged after he was rear-ended by Moffitt while slowing for Matt Kenseth’s Lap 131 spin.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is the first last-place finish for the #7 since this same race in 2013, when Dave Blaney’s #7 SANY Chevrolet, also fielded by Tommy Baldwin Racing, crashed after 36 laps of the STP 400.  It is also the Baldwin team’s second-consecutive last-place run at the Kansas track, following up Mike Bliss’ run in an unsponsored #37 Chevrolet here last fall.
*The 125 laps Bowman completed are the most by a Cup Series last-place at Kansas since Martin Truex, Jr. ran 228 laps before the transmission let go on September 28, 2008.  Truex led 27 laps that day.  Three times he’s led more, but still not won, including when he led 95 on Saturday.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
43) #7-Alex Bowman / 125 laps / vibration
42) #26-Jeb Burton / 153 laps / rear gear
41) #11-Denny Hamlin / 205 laps / crash
40) #18-Erik Jones / 242 laps / running / led 1 lap
39) #14-Tony Stewart / 258 laps / running

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Landon Cassill (3)
2nd) Alex Bowman (2)
3rd) A.J. Allmendinger, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Joey Gase, Sam Hornish, Jr., Brian Scott, J.J. Yeley (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) #40-Hillman Smith Motorsports (3)
2nd) #7-Tommy Baldwin Racing (2)
3rd) #9-Richard Petty Motorsports, #23-BK Racing, #32-Go FAS Racing, #33-Richard Childress Racing / Circle Sport, #47-JTG-Daugherty Racing, #88-Hendrick Motorsports (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (8)
2nd) Ford (2)
3rd) Toyota (1)

TRUCKS: Caleb Roark Scores Chevrolet’s 300th Truck Series Last-Place Finish

SOURCE: SpeedwayMedia.com

Caleb Roark picked up the 4th last-place finish of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career in Friday’s Toyota Tundra 250 at the Kansas Speedway when his #0 Grimes Irrigation & Construction Chevrolet fell out with electrical issues after he completed 5 of the race’s 167 laps.

The finish was Roark’s first of the season and his first in a Truck Series race since last year’s Homestead finale, four races ago, where his third last-place finish of the season netted him the 2014 LASTCAR Truck Series Championship in a bottom-five tiebreaker with Justin Jennings.  Friday’s finish occurred in Roark’s 16th series start.

Friday was also Roark’s first start of the 2015 season, an arrangement made to fill out the field after the preliminary entry list for the Kansas race had just 28 entrants for 32 spots.  Joining Roark among the late entries were Mike Affarano, back in his bright pink #03 Won ‘n Done Automotive Car Products Chevrolet for the first time since his XFINITY Series entry narrowly missed the field at Richmond with Johanna Long aboard, and two trucks from MAKE Motorsports, a team which went from not attempting the race at all to entering both its trucks with Martinsville last-placer Travis Kvapil (#50 Burnie Grill Chevrolet) and FDNY Racing part-timer Ryan Ellis (unsponsored #1 MAKE Motorsports Chevrolet).

For Friday’s race, Roark would drive the #0 entry for owner-driver Jennifer Jo Cobb, the same number and team which carried him to the 2014 LASTCAR title.  In the weekend’s only practice on Thursday, Roark timed in 29th of the 32 competitors, then in qualifying took the 31st spot with the slowest lap of the session at 150.686 mph.  Just 5 laps into the race, Roark pulled behind the wall under green, edging last-place starter Affarano by a single circuit.  Jennifer Jo Cobb, in her team’s primary #10, finished 19th, her best finish since an 18th in the Daytona opener.

Rounding out the Bottom Five were 30th-place Brandon Jones, who after qualifying 3rd in GMS Motorsports’ #33 Masterforce Tool Storage Chevrolet crashed in Turn 2 on Lap 11, ending his night.  29th went to the #25 of ARCA export Matt Tifft, whose Bill Venturini-owned Clinical RM Toyota left with an oil leak after 18 laps.  Tifft’s truck was a backup - he was slated to run an unsponsored truck for the weekend, but it was damaged in practice.  Finishing 28th, pulling behind the wall with a vibration the same lap as Tifft, was B.J. McLeod in the #45 Tilted Kilt Chevrolet.  It was a rough night for McLeod’s Christopher Long-owned team - his teammate Korbin Forrister, running an identical #08 Chevrolet, had rear gear issues that left him 22nd.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*Roark’s last-place finish was the 300th by Chevrolet in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, the most by any manufacturer in series history.  Chevrolet scored the series’ first two points race last-place finishes during its inaugural season in 1995 with John Borneman at Phoenix (#8 MJ Soffe Chevrolet crashed after 22 laps) and Stan Fox at Tucson (#10 Made For You Chevrolet lost the engine after 19 laps).
*This was the first last-place finish by the #0 in a Truck Series race at Kansas since the same event in 2013, when Scott Saunders piloted Jo Cobb’s #0 Koma Unwind RAM to a last-place run when a vibration stopped him after 2 laps of the SFP 250.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
32) #0-Caleb Roark / 5 laps / electrical
31) #03-Mike Affarano / 6 laps / ignition
30) #33-Brandon Jones / 11 laps / crash
29) #25-Matt Tifft / 18 laps / oil leak
28) #45-B.J. McLeod / 18 laps / vibration

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Norm Benning, Travis Kvapil, Justin Marks, Caleb Roark (1)

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) #0-Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing, #1-MAKE Motorsports, #6-Norm Benning Racing, #35-Win-Tron Racing (1)

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (3)
2nd) Toyota (1)

CUP: Brian Scott Scores First-Ever NASCAR Last-Place Finish

SOURCE: FOX Sports

Brian Scott picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career in Sunday’s GEICO 500 at the Talladega Superspeedway when his #33 Shore Lodge Chevrolet lost the engine and crashed after he completed 18 of the race’s 188 laps.

The finish occurred in Scott’s 10th series start.  It was not only his first last-place run in Cup, but his first across all three of NASCAR’s top divisions following 184 XFINITY Series starts and 62 runs in the Truck Series - 256 starts in all.

In 2007, when he was 19 years old, Scott competed in a mix of X-1R Pro Cup, ARCA, and Camping World Truck Series races with an eye toward making NASCAR’s top division.  During that season, Scott earned four top-ten finishes in X-1R, a 13th in his ARCA debut at Kentucky, and a then-best 15th at Homestead in his last of 7 Truck Series starts for Xpress Motorsports.  One year later, Scott rounded out his first full Truck Series season by finishing runner-up to Todd Bodine in the 2012 Homestead finale.  During his second Truck season in 2009, Scott made his XFINITY Series debut at the Nashville Superspeedway, where he came home 25th for Braun Racing.  After he improved to a 14th-place run at Kansas, Scott went full-time into the XFINITY Series for 2010.

In the six years since, Scott has steadily improved in the XFINITY Series.  Funded primarily by Shore Lodge, a lakeside resort in his native Idaho, Scott has moved from series regulars Braun Racing and RAB Racing to Cup Series programs Joe Gibbs Racing and, currently, Richard Childress Racing.  Despite his quick ascent through the ranks, Scott’s early years in the XFINITY Series have been marked by a number crashes, mechanical failures, and rookie mistakes that have kept him from championship contention.  As of this writing, he remains winless in 184 series starts, though at least twice he has been within striking distance of the checkered flag, only to be bested by a Cup Series regular.

Scott made his Cup debut at Charlotte in the fall of 2013, driving for Childress in the #33 Chevrolet.  This is the same team currently co-owned by Joe Falk of Circle Sport, who enters the car whenever Childress does not use it to test his development drivers.  A 27th-place finish in Scott’s 2013 debut was followed by a difficult partial season in 2014.  That season included the spring Talladega event, where Scott surprised the field by earning the pole only to crash out and end up on the same lap as last-place finisher Tony Stewart.  However, with a career-best 13th in this year’s Cup race at Las Vegas, Scott looked to Talladega as a chance for an even better result.

On Friday, Scott timed in just 37th fastest of the 45 drivers entered, but jumped to 10th in Happy Hour.  Despite another change to NASCAR’s restrictor-plate track qualifying format, Scott came just four spots short of making the second round, timing in 16th at an average speed of 192.765 mph.

Starting last on Sunday was Matt DiBenedetto, who two weeks prior at Bristol had come just one spot short of his first finish inside the Top 20.  In the early laps of the race, DiBenedetto’s #83 Dustless Blasting Toyota traded the spot with two other drivers, all of them among a ten-car pack that was struggling to keep up with the leaders.  On Lap 2, it belonged to Chris Buescher, back in the #34 CSX Ford for Front Row Motorsports, the team that won the event in 2013.  Lap 3 saw 43rd go to Brendan Gaughan, who after four consecutive DNQ’s managed to get the #62 Dia Thrive Chevrolet into the show.  When Lap 19 began, DiBenedetto again held the spot when trouble broke out in the middle of the pack.

Heading into Turn 1, Scott had lost 10 spots and was running 26th in the middle lane of the lead pack when smoke burst from beneath his Chevrolet.  Scott fought for control, but spun to the inside of the track, nearly collecting the passing #22 Shell / Pennzoil Ford of Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano.  Following Logano’s tire tracks was two-time Talladega winner Michael Waltrip.  Waltrip, again driving his own #55 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota, couldn’t avoid Scott’s car and the two collided, sending Scott into the grass.  Waltrip made it to the garage while Scott climbed from his car in the infield, out of the event.

The wreck dropped Waltrip to the 43rd spot behind 42nd-place Scott, but while Scott was the first retiree, Waltrip’s team was hard at work getting him back on track.  When the #55 reappeared on Lap 55, he needed to complete just one lap to drop Scott to 43rd, where he remained for the rest of the race.

By the time Waltip rejoined the race, six other cars had already ended up in the garage area following a grinding backstretch wreck on Lap 47.  Too damaged to continue were the #6 AdvoCare Ford of Trevor Bayne, whose spinning 8th-place car triggered the wreck, and Kyle Larson’s #42 Target Chevrolet.  On Lap 55, Bayne and Larson were classified 39th and 41st as thirteen other drivers also suffered damage in the melee.  42nd soon went to David Ragan, whose final run as relief driver of the #18 Pedigree Toyota left him with a car wrecked as badly as the unsponsored #40 Hillman Smith Motorsports Chevrolet of 40th-place Landon Cassill.  Like Bayne, Cassill was inside the Top 10 at the time of the crash.  By race’s end, Ragan and Cassill returned to the race many laps down, lifting them to 38th and 39th, respectively and dropping the retired Bayne and Larson to 41st and 42nd.  Finishing 40th between Cassill and Bayne was Gaughan, whose #62 knocked down the wall exiting Turn 2 after a cut tire on Lap 92.

DiBenedetto spun during the Lap 47 wreck, but recovered to record a new career-best finish of 18th on Sunday.  As it turned out, his was just one of several surprising runs by underdogs in Sunday’s field.  4th went to Ryan Blaney, his first top-five finish in just 6 Cup starts, capping off a strong weekend where he qualified 3rd.  Engine troubles had prevented Blaney from finishing two of his previous three Cup starts, leaving him 39th in the Daytona 500 and 42nd at Texas.  6th went to Sam Hornish, Jr., his first top-ten finish since Watkins Glen in 2012 when he was driving for Roger Penske.  Hornish, who finished last at Fontana in March, had finished no better than 12th this season in the Daytona 500.  10th went to the #98 Royal Teak Ford of Josh Wise, who secured Phil Parsons Racing its first top-ten finish since the 2013 Daytona 500.  It was Wise’s career-best Cup finish - his previous best was 19th, which came while driving for Front Row Motorsports in this same race two years ago.

Just outside the Top 10 were Cole Whitt and J.J. Yeley, who finished nose-to-tail in 13th and 14th, respectively.  For Whitt, it was his best-career finish as well, improving on a 15th here last fall.  Yeley’s wasn’t quite a career-best Cup run (which remains his runner-up in the 2007 Coca-Cola 600), but it was BK Racing’s third-best finish behind Travis Kvapil’s 8th-place run at Talladega in the fall of 2012 and Alex Bowman's 13th-place run at Daytona last July.  Yeley also turned in a 4th-place run in the XFINITY race the day before, his second-straight season with at least one Top Five for JGL Racing.

Finally, Alex Bowman himself drove Tommy Baldwin Racing’s #7 Golden Corral Chevrolet to a 16th-place finish, just three spots shy of his own career-best finish of 13th in last summer’s July race at Daytona.  This was not only the best run of the young season for Baldwin’s Cup team, but the third-consecutive year where the Baldwin’s flagship #7 has finished 16th in the spring race at Talladega.  Bowman himself had finished last in his most recent outing at the Alabama track last fall.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marks the first time the #33 has ever finished last in a Cup race at Talladega.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
43) #33-Brian Scott / 18 laps / engine
42) #42-Kyle Larson / 46 laps / crash
41) #6-Trevor Bayne / 46 laps / crash
40) #62-Brendan Gaughan / 90 laps / crash
39) #40-Landon Cassill / 91 laps / crash

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Landon Cassill (3)
2nd) A.J. Allmendinger, Alex Bowman, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Joey Gase, Sam Hornish, Jr., Brian Scott, J.J. Yeley (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) #40-Hillman Smith Motorsports (3)
2nd) #7-Tommy Baldwin Racing, #9-Richard Petty Motorsports, #23-BK Racing, #32-Go FAS Racing, #33-Richard Childress Racing / Circle Sport, #47-JTG-Daugherty Racing, #88-Hendrick Motorsports (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (7)
2nd) Ford (2)
3rd) Toyota (1)

XFINITY: Charles Lewandoski Gives #10 Third-Straight Talladega Last-Place Finish

SOURCE: Getty Images, NASCAR

Charles Lewandoski picked up the 3rd last-place finish of his NASCAR XFINITY Series career in Saturday’s Winn-Dixie 300 at the Talladega Superspeedway when his unsponsored #10 TriStar Motorsports Toyota fell out with transmission issues after he completed 3 of the race’s 113 laps.

The finish was Lewandoski’s first of the season and his first in the XFINITY Series since September 29, 2012, when he also drove the same #10 to an early exit due to a vibration after 3 laps of the OneMain Financial 200 at Dover, 82 races ago.  The finish occurred in Lewandoski’s 28th series start.

At Phoenix this past March, Lewandoski made his first XFINITY Series start in more than two years when he debuted a new team owned by Tom Kapusta.  Lewandoski qualified the #56 Ole Energy Chevrolet in the 40th and final starting spot, bumping Atlanta last-placer Morgan Shepherd from the field, and went on to finish 30th, five laps down.  It was the first XFINITY Series race Lewandoski finished under power since he rove for Curtis Key at Iowa in the summer of 2011, finishing 22nd in Key’s flagship #40.  It was also a welcome change from 2014, when he parked seven times in the Truck Series driving for Randy Young and Kevin Cywinski, resulting in two last-place finishes.

Coming into the Talladega race, TriStar’s #10 was again slated to be driven by current 2015 LASTCAR XFINITY Series Championship leader Jeff Green, his name still on the rear window banner of the machine.  However, in the weekend’s only practice session on Friday, Green shared his ride with Lewandoski, the two of them putting up the 37th-fastest lap of 45 entrants.  Although Green also qualified the car, not needing to use his Past Champion’s Provisional with the 30th-best time of 175.832 mph, it was Lewandoski who climbed aboard on race day, sending the #10 to the back before the green flag.

Starting 40th on Saturday was Peyton Sellers, who was making his sixth start of the season in Victor Obaika’s #97 Vroom! Brands Chevrolet.  Sellers had squeezed his way into the field ahead of five DNQs, including Texas last-place finisher Mike Harmon and the new Deese Racing Enterprises team with Chris Cockrum in their #35 Advanced Communications Group Chevrolet.  By Lap 3 of the race, Lewandoski had taken 40th from Sellers and was more than 4 seconds behind the leader when trouble broke out up front.

Heading into the third corner, Elliott Sadler cut across the nose of Darrell Wallace, Jr.’s Ford, triggering an accident that collected the Chevrolet of Brendan Gaughan and Lewandoski’s teammate Mike Bliss in TriStar’s #19.  Under the ensuing caution, Lewandoski followed Bliss to the garage area.  Bliss spent 13 laps behind the wall before returning to the track by Lap 19.  Lewandoski, who had by then parked the #10, fell to last once Bliss resumed the race.  Gaughan resumed the race with Bliss, only to be collected in a second accident on Lap 74, leaving his #62 South Point Hotel & Casino Chevrolet 39th at the checkered flag.

Finishing 38th was Kenny Wallace, driving in relief of brother Mike Wallace during the elder Wallace’s heart surgery.  Kenny’s turn in the #26 JGL Racing Toyota ended in the same crash that eliminated Gaughan in the tri-oval.  37th went to Chase Elliott, who slipped from 2nd to 3rd in the point standings after his #9 NAPA Chevrolet found the Turn 2 wall on Lap 40.  Elliott managed to finish the race under power, 29 laps down, and he came just one circuit short of passing Harrison Rhodes’ #0 Flex Seal Colors Chevrolet for the 36th spot.  Rhodes also suffered damage in the Lap 74 wreck, but was ultimately stopped by transmission issues after he completed just 12 more laps.

Meanwhile, at the front of the field, two underdogs from last year’s Talladega race burned even brighter when the race was over.  4th place went to the #28 Texas 28 Spirits Stage Toyota of J.J. Yeley, 7th in the 2014 running, his best finish since he came home 3rd at Lucas Oil Raceway on August 5, 2006.  Yeley led two laps on Saturday, pacing the field as late as with 19 to go.  The next day in the Cup race, Yeley would pilot BK Racing’s #23 Dr. Pepper Toyota to a 14th-place finish, the team’s third-best finish in its brief existence.

Less than a week after his first last-place run in Cup, Joey Gase earned his first top-five finish with a remarkable 5th in the #52 Donate Life / Alabama Organ Center Chevrolet.  Last year in this event, Gase finished 11th despite the car overheating in the closing laps.  This is also the first-ever top-five and top-ten finish for veteran Jimmy “Smut” Means in 14 years and 284 XFINITY Series starts.  During his own Cup career as an owner-driver, Means himself had a career-best finish of 7th at the Talladega track on May 1, 1983.  That run was one of just 17 top-ten finishes he earned in 455 starts over 18 years from 1976 through 1993.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marks the third-consecutive year that the #10 TriStar team has finished last in the XFINITY Series race at Talladega, and each came with a different driver.  In 2013, Jeff Green fell out after 3 laps with a vibration.  In 2014, Blake Koch’s vibration ended his run after 1 lap.  Both drivers went on to claim the season’s LASTCAR XFINITY Series Championship.
*Lewandoski is the first driver to finish last in an XFINITY Series race at Talladega due to transmission issues.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #10-Charles Lewandoski / 3 laps / transmission
39) #62-Brendan Gaughan / 72 laps / crash
38) #26-Kenny Wallace / 72 laps / crash
37) #9-Chase Elliott / 84 laps / running / led 1 lap
36) #0-Harrison Rhodes / 84 laps / transmission

2015 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Jeff Green (4)
2nd) Dexter Bean, Mike Harmon, Charles Lewandoski, Morgan Shepherd, Derek White (1)

2015 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) #10-TriStar Motorsports (5)
2nd) #40-Motorsports Business Management, #74-Mike Harmon Racing, #89-Shepherd Racing Ventures, #92-King Autosport (1)

2015 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Toyota (5)
2nd) Chevrolet, Dodge (2)