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)

CUP: Joey Gase Earns First Cup Series Last-Place Finish

SOURCE: NASCAR.com

Joey Gase picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career in Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 at the Richmond International Raceway when his #32 Donate Life Virginia / CorvetteParts.net Ford fell out after a single-car crash took him out of the running after 124 of 400 laps.  The finish occurred in Gase’s 5th series start.

Gase’s ride on Sunday was owned by Archie St. Hilaire, who gave the 22-year-old driver his first XFINITY Series ride at Iowa in the summer of 2011.  In the four years since, both driver and owner took steps to make their way into the Sprint Cup Series.  In 2012, Gase joined Hamilton-Means Racing (now Jimmy Means Racing) to drive the #52 XFINITY Series ride owned by longtime owner-driver Jimmy “Smut” Means.  Last year at Talladega, Gase earned a career-best 11th at Talladega despite overheating in the closing laps.  In 2013, Hilaire entered into a partnership with FAS Lane Racing owner Frankie Stoddard, helping Stoddard’s single-car team continue to run the full season.  The result, now called Go FAS Racing, enabled Gase to make his Cup Series debut in the #32 last September at Chicagoland, where he came home 37th in the Foreverhip.com / Zimmer Ford.  Gase improved to a career-best 33rd in his most recent Cup start at Phoenix in November.

At Richmond, Gase was one of 45 entrants competing for 43 spots.  An advocate of organ donation, his car carried logos for Donate Life, which also supported his XFINITY Series ride at Means Racing.  Gase and Means finished 26th in Friday night’s XFINITY race.  Gase’s Cup car was also one of many carrying visible tributes to the late Steve Byrnes, his Ford carrying his name was along the roof rails.

Gase timed in 41st in the opening practice session and 43rd in Happy Hour, but picked up speed in qualifying to earn the 35th starting spot with a speed of 126.541 mph.  Missing the show were Brendan Gaughan - the fourth-straight DNQ for the #62 Premium Motorsports team - and Jeb Burton in his #26 Estes Toyota.  During the race’s rain postponement from Saturday night to Sunday morning, Burton would trade rides with teammate J.J. Yeley on Sunday.  This sent Burton to the back along with two other drivers - Cole Whitt, who changed transmissions, and Jeff Green.

On Friday, the 52-year-old Green, the all-time leader in NASCAR last-place finishes, had muscled The Motorsports Group’s #30 into its first Cup start since Atlanta, seven races ago, by putting up the 33rd-fastest time.  For Green, it was also his first Cup start since Loudon in July of 2011, when he parked the unsponsored #55 Ford for Front Row Motorsports.  TMG changed engines on the #30 before race day, taking the 43rd spot from last-place starter Reed Sorenson in Front Row’s #34 Dockside Logistics Ford.

Green held 43rd until Lap 3, when Alex Kennedy slipped to the back in Joe Falk’s brightly-colored #33 HonorandRemember.org Chevrolet.  Kennedy, making his 5th start in 9 races, was the first to be lapped on Lap 20, but Green retook it when he made an extended green-flag stop on Lap 36.  Green returned to the race 3 laps down on Lap 39 as the field continued to await the competition caution on Lap 50.

Then, on Lap 127, trouble found Joey Gase.  Running 3 laps down at the time, Gase was bumped by Aric Almirola’s #43 Farmland Ford off Turn 2, sending the #32 into a spin that nearly collected Danica Patrick’s #10 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet before he nosed into the inside SAFER barrier.  Though uninjured in the wreck and his car not showing extensive damage, Gase climbed out and watched his machine be towed to the garage area.  By the halfway mark, Gase was listed as officially out of the event.

Finishing 42nd Sunday was Josh Wise, who by 13 laps was spared his first last-place finish in a points race since joining Phil Parsons Racing.  Electrical issues again plagued Wise’s #98, which brought out the third caution on Lap 139 after he stalled on the apron of Turn 1.  Wise spent more than 20 laps behind the wall and returned to competition on Lap 159.  Then, just four circuits later, Wise’s Ford lost the engine, spouting flames and smoke from underneath the hood.  Wise’s car, which carried Steve Byrnes’ likeness on the hood, retired the same time as Gase.

41st went to a very frustrated Tony Stewart, who after a late spin with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on Lap 361 was left with his 4th bottom-five finish in 10 races.  Like Gase, Stewart didn’t suffer much damage in his spin, but the car failed to re-fire, and he wound up at the back of the pack.  Green and Kennedy rounded out the Bottom Five, both finishing under power 14 and 8 laps, respectively, behind race winner Kurt Busch.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was the first last-place finish for the #32 in a Cup race since last June at Michigan, when Travis Kvapil’s KeenParts.com / Corvetteparts.net Ford fell out with crash damage after he completed 23 laps of the Quicken Loans 400.
*This was the first last-place finish for the #32 in a Cup race at Richmond since September 11, 2010, when the late Jason Leffler’s unsponsored Braun Racing Toyota had brake issues after he completed 30 laps of the Air Guard 400.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
43) #32-Joey Gase / 124 laps / crash
42) #98-Josh Wise / 137 laps / engine
41) #14-Tony Stewart / 359 laps / crash
40) #30-Jeff Green / 386 laps / running
39) #33-Alex Kennedy / 392 laps / running

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., 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, #47-JTG-Daugherty Racing, #88-Hendrick Motorsports (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (6)
2nd) Ford (2)
3rd) Toyota (1)