TRUCKS: Caleb Roark Bids For Second-Straight LASTCAR Title After Close Texas Contest

SOURCE: Rubbin's Racin' Forums

Caleb Roark picked up the 7th last-place finish of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career in Friday’s WinStar World Casino & Resort 350 at the Texas Motor Speedway when electrical issues prevented his #0 Driven2Honor.org Chevrolet from completing any of the 147 laps.

The finish, which occurred, in Roark’s 23rd series start, was his first since Pocono, 9 races ago and breaks a three-way tie with Norm Benning and Tyler Tanner for the 2015 LASTCAR Truck Series lead.  With two races to go, Roark is now in position to claim his second-straight LASTCAR title.

Roark’s truck made it an even 32 for as many spots in Friday’s field, and he was guaranteed to make his first series start since last month’s 30th-place finish at Las Vegas.  With just one lap turned in Thursday’s opening practice, Roark was 29th-fastest overall, and in Happy Hour later that day, he failed to complete a lap at all.  One week after engine issues cancelled Brad Foy’s series debut in the truck, electrical issues now reared their ugly head, and the #0 was now having issues starting.  These issues persisted in qualifying, and when time expired on the five-minute clock, he was unable to put up a time and was set to roll off 31st.

With just one caution on the night, Friday’s race was the fastest in series history, and the last-place battle ended just as quickly - Roark’s electrical issues prevented him from completing a lap.  Roark managed to edge fellow LASTCAR contender Tyler Tanner, whose backup #36 Mittler Bros. Machine & Tool Chevrolet for MB Motorsports lost an engine in practice, and the team couldn’t get a functioning backup.

Both Roark and Tanner were six laps behind 30th-place Mike Harmon, who debuted a second unsponsored truck of his own, #49, which he drove in addition to Jordan Anderson’s 21st-place #74 Columbia, South Carolina / Knight Fire Protection Chevrolet.  MAKE Motorsports again had both trucks in the show, and this time former XFINITY Series driver Dexter Stacey pulled the team’s unsponsored #50 Chevrolet behind the wall after 11 laps.  Rounding out the Bottom Five was Todd Peck, who was making his first series start since coming home next-to-last at Michigan in June.  Peck’s family-owned team, which ran the #40 earlier this season, on Friday became the third different program to run the #45 in the series in 2015.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing’s #0 has swept both last-place runs at Texas in 2015 and has trailed in four of the last five Truck Series races held at the track.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
32) #0-Caleb Roark / 0 laps / electrical
31) #36-Tyler Tanner / 0 laps / engine
30) #49-Mike Harmon / 6 laps / engine
29) #50-Dexter Stacey / 11 laps / electrical
28) #45-Todd Peck / 17 laps / suspension

LASTCAR CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE
With two races to go, four drivers remain in contention for the LASTCAR Truck Series Championship - joining Roark are Tyler Tanner, Norm Benning, and Justin Jennings.

Three-time last-placers Norm Benning and Tyler Tanner can only control their own destiny by finishing last at both Phoenix and Homestead, taking the lead outright.

Benning will be eliminated if he doesn’t finish last at Phoenix - he trails Roark in bottom-fives 8-4 and cannot rely on a tiebreaker.  Tanner can finish last in one race and prevail in a tiebreaker if Roark fails to finish in the Bottom Ten in both races - in that situation, Tanner would match Roark’s 8 Bottom Fives, but prevail by a single Bottom Ten, 9-8.  This will be challenging, however, as Roark’s “start-and-park” ride has not finished outside the Bottom Ten all season.

Two-time last-placer Jennings has a good chance of winning the title, but only if he sweeps the final two last-place finishes of the season.  Jennings currently has 9 bottom-five finishes and 13 in the Bottom Ten, meaning that if he ties Roark, Tanner, or Benning, he will win either tiebreaker no matter where those three drivers finish in both races.  It would be a surprising development after this site prematurely awarded Jennings the title after Phoenix in 2014.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Jo Cobb, who also has two last-place finishes and 11 Bottom Tens, has been eliminated from LASTCAR contention.  Cobb has just 3 Bottom Fives in 2015 and, even with a two-race sweep, cannot win the tiebreaker against Roark’s season total of 8.  Cobb’s two-truck team, however, has now clinched the 2015 LASTCAR Truck Series Owner’s title by three finishes over Mike Mittler and Norm Benning.

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Caleb Roark (4)
2nd) Norm Benning, Tyler Tanner (3)
3rd) Justin Jennings, Jennifer Jo Cobb (2)
4th) Adam Edwards, Joey Gattina, J.J. Haley, Stew Hayward, Travis Kvapil, Justin Marks, Robert Mitten (1)

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing (7)
2nd) MB Motorsports, Norm Benning Racing (4)
3rd) MAKE Motorsports (2)
4th) Braun Motorsports, Mike Harmon Racing, NDS Motorsports, Win-Tron Racing (1)

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (18)
2nd) RAM (2)
3rd) Toyota (1)

CUP: As Chaos Reigns Up Front at Martinsville, Clint Bowyer Finishes In The Back

SOURCE: Motorsport.com

Clint Bowyer picked up the 3rd last-place finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career in Sunday’s Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 at the Martinsville Speedway when his #15 Maxwell House Toyota crashed after he completed 185 of 500 laps.

The finish, which came in Bowyer’s 358th series start, was his first of the season and his first in Cup since last fall at Charlotte, 38 races ago.

2015 has been a season of beginnings and ends for the Kansas veteran.  Bowyer opened his fourth season with Michael Waltrip Racing with a 7th-place run in he Daytona 500, locked in the three-wide battle for position behind race winner Joey Logano.  Just four races later, however, he had dropped to 20th in points with four-straight finishes outside the Top 20.  He steadily improved over the summer, picking up three top-ten runs in June including a season-best 3rd at Sonoma.  But in late July, while in the thick of a battle for a Chase berth, the news broke that MWR had lost its partner, Rob Kauffman, and the two-car team would be ceasing operations at the end of the year.

Without a win, but a 10th-place finish at Richmond in September, Bowyer still secured a berth in the 2015 Chase, his first playoff run since 2013.  He came home 19th in the Chase opener at Chicago - second-worst among the sixteen contenders - but was then docked 25 driver points for an unapproved rear end suspension discovered during pre-qualifying inspection.  The penalty dealt a fatal blow to Bowyer’s title chances, and he was eliminated after the first cutoff race at Dover.  A few days later, it was announced that Bowyer and sponsor 5-Hour Energy would move to HScott Motorsports in 2016 in preparation to replace a retiring Tony Stewart at Stewart-Haas Racing in 2017.  As MWR has continued to wind down operations, the effort has turned to getting as many good finishes as possible.

Bowyer started the Martinsville weekend with the 9th-fastest time in the opening practice session and secured the 17th-fastest time in qualifying, just missing the cut for the final round with a lap of 97.714 mph.  On Saturday, Bowyer was just 22nd in the first session, then climbed to 11th in Happy Hour.

Starting last on Sunday was Alex Kennedy in the black #33 Little Joe’s Auto Chevrolet for Circle Sport, the California driver 33rd in his Martinsville debut in March.  During the opening 7 laps run under a green/yellow start due to rain, Kennedy was joined by Kasey Kahne and Tony Stewart, who both went to backup cars after crashes in qualifying and practice, respectively.  When the race finally went green on Lap 8, Kennedy followed Kahne and Stewart through the field, dropping Timmy Hill to 43rd in Premium Motorsports’ unsponsored #62 Chevrolet.  Around Lap 28, Hill became the first driver to lose a lap, and he held the spot until Lap 82, when Trevor Bayne made an unscheduled green-flag stop in the #6 AdvoCare Ford, costing 3 laps.

Hill’s Chevrolet fought a persistent oil leak in the first quarter of the race, trailing whisps of smoke that soon drew the attention of NASCAR officials.  On Lap 84, Hill retook last from Bayne when he pulled into the garage to allow the team to make repairs.  Joining Hill at the bottom of the field was Brett Moffitt, whose #34 Dockside Logistics Ford came in for a new battery on Lap 85.  On Lap 102, Moffitt returned to the track in 42nd, and on Lap 114, Hill also came back, 33 laps down and still in 43rd.

On Lap 128, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. was struggling with damage to the nose of his #17 Zest Ford suffered in a chain-reaction accident on Lap 114.  On Lap 128, Stenhouse was 5 laps down when the car veered into the wall entering Turn 3, drawing the fifth caution of the afternoon.  The lengthy repairs to Stenhouse’s right-front cost several more laps, and he took last from Hill on Lap 155.  Stenhouse’s girlfriend Danica Patrick, also involved in the Lap 114 accident, lost her temper with David Gilliland and his #38 Jerry Cook Tribute Ford.  The first of these two fender-benders came on Lap 158, and she pulled into the garage on Lap 174 before dropping to 41st on Lap 180.  Stenhouse, still last, returned to the track on Lap 189, followed by Patrick on Lap 192, her #10 GoDaddy Chevrolet just 8 laps from taking 42nd from Timmy Hill.  If things stayed the same, Stenhouse would score his first Cup Series last-place finish with Hill in 42nd and Patrick in 41st.

However, just before Stenhouse and Patrick returned, Bowyer ran into trouble.  On Lap 187, running on the high side of a three-wide battle with Kyle Larson and David Ragan entering Turn 3, the two cars to Bowyer’s inside made contact and sent him spinning into the outside wall.  Though Bowyer managed to get his car rolling again under the ninth caution of the afternoon, he immediately pulled into the garage.  The Michael Waltrip Racing crew found the damage too severe to continue, and the #15 never returned to the track.  On Lap 201, Bowyer fell to 40th and was listed as “out” soon after.  He fell to last on Lap 256, taking the spot from Stenhouse.

Patrick and Stenhouse finished 40th and 39th, respectively.  Patrick tangled with Gilliland a second time on Lap 430 and chased him to the apron, destroying the nose of her Chevrolet.  Although she returned to the track, the damage proved too substantial, and she exited the race with crash damage in the final laps.  Between Bowyer and Patrick in the Bottom Five were 42nd-place Ryan Preece and 41st-place Kyle Fowler, who were both making their second Cup Series starts.  Preece’s #98 Vydox Plus Ford for Premium Motorsports caught air when he ran over the grass entrance to pit road on Lap 137 while Fowler’s pink #32 Keen Parts.com / CorvetteParts.net Ford bashed the wall on Lap 379 following brake failure.  Preece returned to the race in the closing stages, 135 laps back, while Fowler retired.

LASTCAR STATSTICS
*This was the first last-place finish for the #15 in a Cup race at Martinsville since April 26, 1992, when Geoff Bodine’s #15 Motorcraft Ford - fielded by Hall of Famer Bud Moore’s single-car operation - lost the engine after 104 laps of the Hanes 500.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
43) #15-Clint Bowyer / 185 laps / crash
42) #98-Ryan Preece / 365 laps / running
41) #32-Kyle Fowler / 373 laps / brakes
40) #10-Danica Patrick / 391 laps / crash
39) #17-Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. / 423 laps / running

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Landon Cassill (4)
2nd) Alex Bowman (3)
3rd) Aric Almirola, Michael Annett, Kasey Kahne, J.J. Yeley (2)
4th) Justin Allgaier, A.J. Allmendinger, Trevor Bayne, Ryan Blaney, Clint Bowyer, Jeb Burton, Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Joey Gase, David Gilliland, Timmy Hill, Sam Hornish, Jr., Bobby Labonte, Brian Scott, Tony Stewart, Cole Whitt, Josh Wise (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Hillman Smith Motorsports (4)
2nd) BK Racing, Hendrick Motorsports, HScott Motorsports, Richard Petty Motorsports, Tommy Baldwin Racing (3)
3rd) Go FAS Racing, Front Row Motorsports, Phil Parsons Racing / Premium Motorsports (2)
4th) Joe Gibbs Racing, JTG-Daugherty Racing, Michael Waltrip Racing, Richard Childress Racing, Richard Childress Racing / Circle Sport, Roush-Fenway Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing, Wood Brothers Racing (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (18)
2nd) Ford (10)
3rd) Toyota (5)

TRUCKS: J.J. Haley Only Retiree From Martinsville Slugfest

SOURCE: jjhaleyracing.com

J.J. Haley picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career in Saturday’s Kroger 200 at the Martinsville Speedway when his #32 Great Clips Chevrolet was involved in a single-truck crash that ended his run after 119 of 200 laps.  The finish came in Haley’s second series start.

A sixteen-year-old development driver for Braun Motorsports, Haley has moved from quarter midgets to a number of sporadic starts in NASCAR.  In 2014, Haley competed in ARCA and both the West and East divisions of the NASCAR K&N Pro Series.  This year, Haley has earned a combined nine top-five finishes across the three divisions and made the move to NASCAR’s top three divisions.  His Truck Series debut came two months ago at Bristol, where he came home a solid 14th.  Martinsville would be his next attempt.

A season-high 39 drivers were on Martinsville’s preliminary entry list - so many, in fact, that three withdrew in the lead-up to qualifying.  On Friday, B.J. McLeod’s #45 Tilted Kilt Chevrolet was pulled along with MB Motorsports’ “start-and-park” #36 entry, which did not have a listed driver.  The withdrawals followed the once-again late entries fielded by MAKE Motorsports, who this week put Camden Murphy in the #1 and Travis Kvapil in the #50.

Late model racer Brad Foy looked to make his NASCAR debut in Jennifer Jo Cobb’s #0 Driven2Honor.org Chevrolet.  Foy entered the race while grieving from a devastating tragedy after the death of his father.  Foy turned in the 31st-fastest time in the opening practice session, outpacing Cobb’s locked-in truck that was 36th, but an engine failure forced the team to pull his entry.

Haley ran 22nd in the opening session and 20th in Happy Hour before he secured the 22nd starting spot with a speed of 94.200 mph.

The four drivers who missed the field were led by Norm Benning, who scored just his second DNQ of the year and his first since New Hampshire.  Benning is still tied for the lead in the 2015 LASTCAR Truck Series Championship, but his four bottom-five finishes trail co-leaders Caleb Roark’s 7 and Tyler Tanner’s 6.  Joining Benning were Brandon Brown, his fourth DNQ of his sophomore season, Chuck Buchanan, Jr., his fourth unsuccessful attempt to make his series debut, and K&N West Series driver Jimmy Weiler, the 42-year-old Sonoma, California driver missing the cut in his first series attempt.

Starting 32nd in Saturday’s race was Cobb, who ran an old Chevrolet body on her #10 Driven2Honor.org-sponsored entry.  Cobb was among the first drivers to lose a lap, and by Lap 100 was joined by only two other lapped machines with drivers making their first series starts:  Louisiana’s Brandon Hightower in MB Motorsports’ #08 St. Jude Children’s Hospital / Operation 2nd Chance Chevrolet and Wisconsin short tracker Paige Decker in Mike Harmon’s #74 Eagle River Derbytrack RAM, returning from a DNQ in the spring race.  Decker and Hightower both spun in the early stages with Decker taking last from Cobb as the trio lost laps.  The #74 was still trailing the field on Lap 120 when trouble broke out in Turn 1.

That time by, J.J. Haley was running on the lead lap in 26th when his brakes failed going into the first corner.  His truck switched ends and backed hard into the outside wall, stopping the machine against the outside wall.  Haley was uninjured, but his truck was too damaged to continue, and he became the first - and only - retiree from the event.

Cobb and Decker finished under power in the next two spots while Hightower climbed to 27th.  29th went to Spencer Gallagher, whose #23 Allegiant Travel Chevrolet briefly entered the Top 5 on old tires only to be involved in his second-straight late-race accident with just six laps to go.  Rounding out the Bottom Five was 17-year-old K&N Pro Series West rookie Dalton Sargeant, who brought out three cautions in the #5 Galt Toyota.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is the first last-place finish for the #32 in a Truck Series race since March 12, 2011, when Brad Sweet’s own turn in the Great Clips Chevrolet - then fielded by Turner Motorsports - crashed after 13 laps of the Too Tough To Tame 200 at Darlington.  The number had never before finished last in a Truck Series race at Martinsville.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
32) #32-J.J. Haley / 119 laps / crash
31) #10-Jennifer Jo Cobb / 186 laps / running
30) #74-Paige Decker / 193 laps / running
29) #23-Spencer Gallagher / 196 laps / running
28) #5-Dalton Sargeant / 196 laps / running

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Norm Benning, Caleb Roark, Tyler Tanner (3)
2nd) Justin Jennings, Jennifer Jo Cobb (2)
3rd) Adam Edwards, Joey Gattina, J.J. Haley, Stew Hayward, Travis Kvapil, Justin Marks, Robert Mitten (1)

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing (6)
2nd) MB Motorsports, Norm Benning Racing (4)
3rd) MAKE Motorsports (2)
4th) Braun Motorsports, Mike Harmon Racing, NDS Motorsports, Win-Tron Racing (1)

2015 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (17)
2nd) RAM (2)
3rd) Toyota (1)

OPINION: The Final Lap Is Sacred

Gordon versus Junior, 2004 Aaron's 499
SOURCE: FOX Sports

The final lap.  Those final few seconds of recklessness, where the few drivers who’ve managed to keep their cars together keep the gas pedal down and try daring moves to bid for every position.  When it’s a battle for the lead, these seconds become the stuff of legends.  Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough locking bumpers at Daytona.  Dale Jarrett’s photo finish with Davey Allison at Michigan.  Kurt Busch and Ricky Craven bumping and sliding around Darlington.  It can be argued, in fact, that the best races are remembered most by what happens after the white flag drops.

Consider, if you will, all the moments we’d have lost if the caution froze the field on the final lap.  What if Doug Heveron’s crash on the apron of Turn 1 denied us the photo finish between Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough in 1984?  Or if Lake Speed and John Andretti’s spin forever made us wonder if Dale Earnhardt really could hold off Bobby Labonte that final half-lap of the 1998 Daytona 500?  Sure, those races really did end under caution.  Sure, the lead didn’t change either time.  Sure, Petty’s 200th and Earnhardt’s Daytona 500 win were landmarks in their own right.  But on those days, the drivers knew that the caution flag meant something very different.  The broadcasters’ voices kicked up a notch, because they knew it too.  It meant that lap now constituted the white, and that who reached the finish line first would still determine the winner.

Do you remember the thrills of Talladega in the spring of 2004?  Or at Daytona, in July 2008?  No?  That seems hard to believe.  In 2004, with four laps to go, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. were side-by-side in Turns 3 and 4, two of the most popular drivers set for a legendary photo-finish in a physical race.  In 2008 on a green-white-checkered, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch were side-by-side, too, looking to settle who was the driver of the year, the one who would truly challenge Jimmie Johnson’s title reign.  But both of those finishes, like that on Sunday, were denied to us.  Denied because a wreck that happened well behind them froze the field with acres of clear track in front of them.  And so their stories are lost, just as Sunday’s debacle will be forgotten by all but infamy.

The current rules cite safety, saying that crews need a chance to get to the cars quicker, as if the wreck will just magically stop at the moment of caution and as if the leaders don’t have spotters alerting them to slow down once they reach the finish.  These feigned concerns only mask the inconsistency of NASCAR’s enforcement.

On the final lap at Talladega in the fall of 2005, Dale Jarrett was leading when Kyle Petty spun by himself into the inside wall on the backstretch.  In the last corner of Talladega in 2006, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s wreck was also on the apron as Brian Vickers looked to hold off Kasey Kahne for the lead.  And just this year at the Daytona 500, Kyle Larson and Jeff Gordon spun to the inside while Joey Logano steamed safely into Turn 3.  While each of these three wrecks were well clear of the remaining cars on the track, all three races ended under caution.  Still, when 20-car pileups came at the end of Talladega in the fall of 2001 and again in 2012, the race still ended under green.  This inconsistency based on a fallacy of safety cannot stand any longer.

The final lap, the final push to the finish line - whether with one to go or heading to the final caution - is sacred.  It’s what every driver dreams of, earning a win as they cross the stripe.  And it’s what every fan in the stands pays for, hopes for, waits for through hours of strategy and daring to witness.  Some fans watch racing for the personalities, others for the crashes, but all of them want to see a green-flag finish.  They expect it, and they should.  They should because racing isn’t like football, isn’t like baseball, isn’t like some ordinary game where one team can build an insurmountable point lead, making the final moments a formality.  It’s a race.  In the final stages, a legend like David Pearson can lose an engine, or two champions like Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip can tangle, opening doors for first-time winners like Terry Labonte and Kyle Petty, who did under those very circumstances in 1980 and 1986.

I, for one, am sick of being robbed of those final few seconds - especially when the series heads to its most precarious and most intimidating tracks at Daytona and Talladega.  I’m sick of believing the hype, of remembering a time where the finish line meant something and wasn’t some wandering point on the track arbitrarily moved by a late-race altercation.  I’m sick of being disappointed by a lackluster ending to an entertaining race, sick of being derided for saying I wasn’t entertained when, in reality, racing is both sport and entertainment.  When it fails to enthuse, it fails as entertainment, just like a bad movie.  But unlike a movie, what plagues NASCAR isn’t a poor script but a misguided effort to control the one thing that shouldn’t.

The solution is simple.  Make it a rule on the last lap, anything goes - no exceptions.  When a caution flies on the last lap, or within a pre-determined number of laps short of the finish that is announced in each drivers meeting, let the leaders race to the caution flag.  Let them do whatever they want - race below the yellow line while you’re at it.  You can still freeze the field under prior cautions, freeze it after the leaders reach the stripe and end it under caution, but at bare minimum let the fans have their moment beforehand.  The moment they paid for.  And best of all, you don’t even need a single red flag or green-white-checkers to accomplish this.

If this rule is in place, and the drivers know about this beforehand, know also that the rule won’t be changed on the fly during the event, there will be no confusion from both drivers and fans.  There will be, crash or no crash, a race to the finish line - whether on Lap 198 or Lap 200.

With this rule in place in April 2004, we would have seen the photo-finish between Gordon and Junior.  In July 2008, we would have known if Kyle really would have defeated Carl.  And on Sunday, during the first yellow for what NASCAR deemed a “false start,” we would have seen if Logano really could have held off Junior for 2.66 miles.  Who knows?  Maybe they would have rivaled Daytona 1979, Michigan 1991, or Darlington 2003.

It’s time we stop coddling our drivers and insulting their skill.  And it’s time the sport start clearing away pointless and contradicting rules in place of practical procedures that are the core of racing.

To NASCAR, I say this.  You say these are the best stock car drivers and teams in the country?  Fine, then trust them to pick their way through whatever separates them from the moment of caution to the finish line.  You say these cars and tracks are safer than before?  Fine, then show more trust in what you’ve created that they and their drivers can survive to make it that final mile.  You say you should be the number one motorsport in the country, that you have the most passionate fans and best racing?  Fine, then don’t deny those fans their final sprint to the finish line.

CUP: Ryan Blaney Scores First Cup Series Last-Place Run After Fourth Blown Engine of 2015

SOURCE: Motorsport.com

Ryan Blaney picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career in Sunday’s CampingWorld.com 500 at the Talladega Superspeedway when his #21 Motorcraft / Quick Lane Tire & Auto Center Ford lost an engine after he completed 84 of the race’s 196 laps.  The finish occurred in Blaney’s 16th series start.

The 21-year-old son of sprint car legend, NASCAR veteran, and 2009 LASTCAR Cup Champion Dave Blaney has enjoyed a meteoric rise through the ranks.  In 2011, he won his lone K&N Pro Series West start at Phoenix, then in 2012 signed with Brad Keselowski’s Camping World Truck Series team, which he’s since carried to four wins and a 2nd-place showing in the 2014 point standings.  In 2012, he finished 7th in his XFINITY Series debut at Richmond driving for Tommy Baldwin, Jr., and he soon found himself sharing a fleet Penske Racing ride with Keselowski and Joey Logano.  Blaney’s first of three XFINITY victories came at Kentucky in 2013, and he followed this by a 27th-place run in his Cup debut for Penske at Kansas in 2014.

This year, Blaney’s triple-duty schedule was skewed toward more Cup and XFINITY Series starts with a handful in Trucks.  His Cup ride for 2015 was with the Wood Brothers, whose iconic #21 was vacated by Trevor Bayne the previous season.  The Woods’ venerable single-car operation has become a satellite Penske team, its cars prepared alongside those of Keselowski and Logano, and there are indications - but as yet nothing confirmed - that he will run full-time for Penske in the near future.  In the meantime, Blaney’s second season in Cup would remain on a part-time basis.

This past May, the Talladega track was the scene of Blaney’s career-best Cup finish when he finished 4th after starting 3rd, following Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Jimmie Johnson, and Paul Menard across the finish line.  However, other than that finish and a 7th last week at Kansas, Blaney’s 2015 Cup schedule has been marred by several frustrations.  Coming into Sunday’s race, he’d lost engines in three of his 14 starts and missed another three when rain washed out qualifying, eliminating his ride from the field based on a lesser number of race attempts.

Heavy cloud cover moved in through the weekend, but this time the rain stayed away.  On Friday’s opening session, he put up the 20th-fastest time and was 2nd of the 30 drivers in Happy Hour behind Keselowski.  He made it through the first round of qualifying and settled for 9th in the race for the pole, putting up a lap of 192.509 mph.  This time, the two drivers missing the race were two team cars debuting new sponsors: the #23 Overture Toyota of rookie Jeb Burton - his eighth of 2015 - and Michael Annett, whose #46 PJ Fresh / Flying J Chevrolet missed its first race since Atlanta in February.  While in Atlanta, Annett secured a ride from Circle Sport in the #33, this time Travis Kvapil remained in the ride and would roll off 42nd on Sunday.

Starting 43rd on Sunday was Chase contender Martin Truex, Jr., whose #78 Furniture Row / Visser Protection Chevrolet had its time disallowed when he went below the line during his lap in the first session.  Joining him in the rear were fellow Chevrolet drivers Danica Patrick, Tony Stewart, and Justin Allgaier, whose cars were repaired before the race.  Ryan Newman, 10th in points entering the event, also conceded his 18th starting spot to drop to the back.  But before a single lap was completed, 43rd went J.J. Yeley, whose #26 Adirondack Tree Surgeons Toyota spent the opening three laps on pit road.  On Lap 3, Timmy Hill pulled the #62 Royal Teak Collection Ford behind the wall, dropping him back in his first Cup start since Dover earlier this month.  Yeley’s return on Lap 4 dropped Hill to last on Lap 6, but Hill then came back out on Lap 9, 7 circuits behind the leaders.  At this point, Hill and Yeley were running by themselves, just a few seconds ahead of the leaders.

On Lap 18, the leaders caught Hill entering Turn 1, and he guided the #62 safely up the track to let the traffic pass three-wide below him.  Yeley was caught a few laps later, and the two remained on-track, albeit at a slower pace than many of the frontrunners.  As the race remained under green, the two drivers held the final two spots until nearly the one-half mark.

Coming off Turn 2 on Lap 86, Blaney’s #21 slowed suddenly in the high lane, forcing the leaders to take another evasive maneuver to avoid him.  He made it safely to pit road without drawing a caution, but the crew quickly discovered an engine problem that ended their day for a fourth time in 2015.  Blaney fell to 43rd on Lap 94, lifting both Yeley and Hill.

Hill ended up 41st, his Ford suffering an electrical issue that made his car slow down the backstretch in the race’s closing stages.  Yeley ended up one spot outside the Bottom Five in 38th, one spot ahead of Jamie McMurray, whose #1 Cessna Pink Chevrolet drew the second caution of the day when the engine let go while racing the leaders inside the final 5 laps.  40th went to Matt DiBenedetto, whose #83 Dustless Blasting Toyota dropped to 42nd on Lap 97 with mechanical issues of his own, but returned to the track before Lap 120 to come home 19 circuits back.  Behind Hill in 42nd was Justin Allgaier, whose struggles in practice and qualifying were capped by an engine failure on his #51 Auto Owners Insurance Chevrolet that ended the race’s opening green-flag run of 132 laps.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is the first last-place finish for the #21 in a Cup race at Talladega since May 5, 2013, when Trevor Bayne’s own turn in the Motorcraft / Quick Lane Tire & Auto Center Ford ended due to engine issues after 22 laps of the Aaron’s 499.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
43) #21-Ryan Blaney / 84 laps / engine
42) #51-Justin Allgaier / 130 laps / engine
41) #62-Timmy Hill / 168 laps / electrical
40) #83-Matt DiBenedetto / 177 laps / running
39) #1-Jamie McMurray / 182 laps / engine

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Landon Cassill (4)
2nd) Alex Bowman (3)
3rd) Aric Almirola, Michael Annett, Kasey Kahne, J.J. Yeley (2)
4th) Justin Allgaier, A.J. Allmendinger, Trevor Bayne, Ryan Blaney, Jeb Burton, Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Joey Gase, David Gilliland, Timmy Hill, Sam Hornish, Jr., Bobby Labonte, Brian Scott, Tony Stewart, Cole Whitt, Josh Wise (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Hillman Smith Motorsports (4)
2nd) BK Racing, Hendrick Motorsports, HScott Motorsports, Richard Petty Motorsports, Tommy Baldwin Racing (3)
3rd) Go FAS Racing, Front Row Motorsports, Phil Parsons Racing / Premium Motorsports (2)
4th) Joe Gibbs Racing, JTG-Daugherty Racing, Richard Childress Racing, Richard Childress Racing / Circle Sport, Roush-Fenway Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing, Wood Brothers Racing (1)

2015 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (18)
2nd) Ford (10)
3rd) Toyota (4)