CUP: Reed Sorenson’s first last-place run since 2012 comes amid many underdog triumphs

SOURCE: Sean Gardner, Getty Images

Reed Sorenson picked up the 11th last-place finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career in Sunday’s Food City 500 at the Bristol Motor Speedway when his #55 ChampionMachinery.com Chevrolet fell out with suspension problems after 169 of 500 laps.

The finish, which came in Sorenson’s 237th series start, was his first of the season.  It was his first Cup last-place run in 118 races dating back to November 4, 2012, when his #91 Humphrey-Smith Racing Toyota had electrical issues after 6 laps of the AAA Texas 500 at the Texas Motor Speedway.

The 30-year-old Sorenson has remained the very definition of a journeyman driver, moving between multiple small teams in NASCAR.  Following his departure from Humphrey-Smith at the end of 2012, he split his time in 2013 between Leavine Family Racing in Cup, running The Motorsports Group’s flagship #40 in XFINITY, and relieving an injured Michael Annett at Richard Petty Motorsports.  His efforts secured him a full-time Cup ride driving the #36 for Tommy Baldwin Racing in 2014, finishing a season-best 14th at Talladega despite limited funding.

2015 began with Sorenson as the Cinderella story of Speedweeks when his new ride at Xxxtreme Motorsports raced a backup #44 Chevrolet into the Daytona 500 field after a costly qualifying crash.  A detour to RAB Racing turned out to be frustrating as Robby Benton’s #29 Toyota failed to qualify for four straight races, and by summer, Sorenson found himself at Jay Robinson’s Premium Motorsports.  Curiously, the cars Sorenson raced at Premium were once the same Chevrolets he drove at Baldwin in 2014: Robinson acquired the #36 team over the following offseason.

Premium sold off its charter from Phil Parsons Racing prior to the 2016 season, forcing former Front Row Motorsports driver Cole Whitt to qualify the #98 on time.  Short fields since the Daytona 500 have allowed the team to make every race since.  Early this month at Martinsville, Premium entered a second team to make the 39-car fields an even 40.  To drive it, they welcomed Sorenson, who’d also missed the 500 field with Mike Hillmaan’s open team.  Sorenson finished 37th in Premium’s #55 at Martinsville and 36th at Texas, coming home under power both times.  Bristol’s high banks would prove a greater challenge.

Sorenson was 38th-fastest of the 40 entrants in Friday’s opening practice and remained 38th in qualifying with a lap of 123.245mph.  He was 38th again in Saturday’s opening practice, but fell to the bottom of the chart in Happy Hour.

The 40th starting spot in Sunday’s race went to Michael Annett, holder of Premium’s purchased charter, in the #46 Pilot / Flying J Chevrolet.  Annett, who blew an engine one-quarter lap into the previous Bristol race last August (LINK), continued to struggle over the weekend, at one point seeing smoke in the driver’s compartment during practice.  When the green flag waved, however, another car quickly plummeted behind him.  20th-place starter Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s electrical system failed at the start, stopping his car dead in its tracks at the start/finish line.  22nd and 24th-place starters Aric Almirola and David Ragan had nowhere to go and slammed into his rear bumper, damaging all three cars.  Earnhardt lost two laps in the pits as the crew restarted the ECU and switched ignition boxes, dropping him to 40th.

Earnhardt took the wave-around under the first caution on Lap 53, but it wasn’t until Lap 58 that he moved past Sorenson, who had also been lapped on the 16th circuit.  David Ragan #23 Dr. Pepper Toyota, damaged in the opening-lap incident with Earnhardt, briefly held the 40th spot amid a number of pit road penalties, but Sorenson retook it on Lap 78 as he went down a second lap.  On the 110th circuit, Jeffrey Earnhardt fell behind Sorenson in his #32 Keen Parts / Visone RV Ford, moments before the third caution flew for Kyle Busch’s spin in Turn 2.  Again, Sorenson slipped to 40th on the restart, falling four laps down on Lap 119.

The next last-place contender was Regan Smith, who around Lap 121 pulled his #7 APC Chevrolet behind the wall after losing the power steering.  3rd-place running Kyle Larson joined Smith in the garage on Lap 148 with a broken track bar mount.  Smith returned to the track first on Lap 154, followed by Larson on Lap 188.  At that moment, when Matt Kenseth struck the Turn 2 wall and drew the fifth caution, both Smith and Larson were 37 laps in arrears with Smith in 40th.  Smith was still running there when Sorenson made his own trip to the garage around Lap 175 with a broken left-front bracket on the suspension.  Sorenson, already 28 laps behind at the time, then became the race’s firs retiree.

David Ragan’s own bad luck took him out of the race for good on Lap 219 when he lost the engine.  Ragan was seven laps behind at the time of the failure.  38th went to Kyle Busch, whose bid at three consecutive Sprint Cup victories was stifled following two hard slams to the Turn 2 wall after tire failures on his #18 M&M’s 75th Anniversary Toyota.  37th went to Regan Smith, whose new power steering couldn’t avert disaster on Lap 492 when he was hooked by Danica Patrick and slammed the outside wall flush with the passenger side.  Rounding out the group was Matt Kenseth, whose #20 Dollar General Toyota led 142 of the first 186 laps before he, too cut a tire and pounded the wall.

Carl Edwards took the victory over Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who rebounded from his brief stay in 40th place to come home 0.766 seconds back in 2nd.  5th-place Trevor Bayne scored his first top-five finish since his victory in the 2011 Daytona 500 and the first top-five for the team’s flagship #6 since David Ragan’s 4th-place run at Richmond in the fall of that year.  Matt DiBenedetto bounced back from a pair of last-place runs in Saturday’s XFINITY race to pick up a career-best 6th, also a team best for BK Racing in its fifth season of operations.  Clint Bowyer’s difficult start to the season with HScott Motorsports was salved by an 8th-place run, besting his paltry season-best 18th at Fontana with his first top-ten finish since last fall at Talladega.  And defending LASTCAR Cup Champion Landon Cassill led 20 laps - his first since Talladega in the fall of 2014 - and was set for a top-ten finish of his own before a late tangle with Ty Dillon left him 22nd.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was the first last-place finish for the #55 in a Sprint Cup race since June 1, 2014, when Brian Vickers’ #55 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota lost the engine after 73 laps of the FedEx 500 Benefitting Autism Speaks at Dover.
*It’s the first last-place run in Cup for the #55 at Bristol since August 21, 2010, when Michael McDowell’s #55 PRIM Motorsports Toyota lost an engine after 16 laps of the Irwin Tools Night Race.
*This was Sorenson’s first last-place finish in a Cup race at Bristol since March 25, 2007, when his #41 Target Dodge crashed after 21 laps of the Food City 500.
*Sorenson is the first driver to finish last in a Cup race at Bristol due to suspension issues.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #55-Reed Sorenson / 169 laps / suspension
39) #23-David Ragan / 211 laps / engine
38) #18-Kyle Busch / 258 laps / crash
37) #7-Regan Smith / 451 laps / crash
36) #20-Matt Kenseth / 460 laps / running / led 142 laps

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Josh Wise (2)
2nd) Aric Almirola, Matt DiBenedetto, Kyle Larson, Ryan Newman, Reed Sorenson, Cole Whitt (1)

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Premium Motorsports, The Motorsports Group (2)
2nd) BK Racing, Chip Ganassi Racing, Richard Childress Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports (1)

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (6)
2nd) Ford, Toyota (1)

XFINITY: Matt DiBenedetto last on Saturday, scores a career-best 6th on Sunday

SOURE: Rubbin's Racin' Forums

Matt DiBenedetto picked up the 4th last-place finish of his NASCAR XFINITY Series career in Saturday’s Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300 at the Bristol Motor Speedway when his unsponsored #10 TriStar Motorsports Toyota fell out with a vibration after he completed 4 of 200 laps.

This was DiBenedetto’s second last-place finish of 2016, his first since Fontana, two races ago.  TriStar has now finished last in four of the previous five XFINITY races at Bristol, and its #10 has finished 40th in all five of its starts in 2016.

DiBenedetto did not participate in Friday’s opening practice session, but put up the 27th-best time in Happy Hour.  He ranked 23rd-fastest in qualifying later that day, having made the second round with the 21st-fastest time of 122.961 mph.  Both he and Texas last-placer Josh Wise, back in RSS Racing’s #93 Chevrolet, did not complete a lap in Qualifying Round 2.  Regardless, both outpaced the two drivers sent home: Morgan Shepherd, who missed his third-straight race in his #89 Racing With Jesus Chevrolet, and the Carl Long in the #40 Dodge for Motorsports Business Management.

For the first time, heat races would set the grid for Saturday’s 200-lapper, and DiBenedetto’s speed put him 12th on the 20-car grid for Heat 1.  Starting last in the race was Mike Harmon in his unsponsored black #74 Dodge.  DiBenedetto fell to the rear before the green flag, however, and pulled off the track after three laps.  Wise, who also rolled off 12th in Heat 2, also parked after 9 laps of his race, taking the spot from the trailing Derrike Cope in his #70 E-Hydrate at Ingles / To The Point Apparel Chevrolet.  This put DiBenedetto and Wise in the 20th and final row for the 200-lap main event with Wise credited with the 40th starting spot.

As in Heat Race 1, DiBenedetto took last on the first lap and pulled onto pit road.  The leaderboard indicated that he then came out to run one more circuit before he parked for good with four laps in the books.  Wise followed after 21 laps, citing transmission issues, securing the 39th spot.  38th went to DiBenedetto’s teammate J.J. Yeley in his identical unsponsored #14 Toyota.  37th was Blake Koch, who ended up with just his third finish outside the Top 20 this season when Kaulig Motorsports’ #11 Leaf Filter Gutter Protection Chevrolet needed to go to the garage with power steering issues.  Rounding out the Bottom Five was Mike Harmon, his Dodge 18 laps in arrears.

Jeff Green, who scored most of his 86 XFINITY Series last-place finishes in DiBenedetto’s ride, finished 27th, his best finish in the series since September 27, 2014, when he came home 26th at Dover.  Green also stayed out to lead Lap 41 during the first caution, the first time he’d paced an XFINITY Series field since July 28, 2012 at Indianapolis.  Green was tabbed to drive the #15 Main Gate Enterprises Ford originally entered by Rick Ware Racing, but later sponsored and fielded by B.J. McLeod, who’d placed Todd Peck in the #15 the previous three races.  Green finished one spot ahead of McLeod, who finished inside the Top 30 for the sixth time in seven races in 2016.

On Sunday, DiBenedetto rolled off 30th in BK Racing’s #83 Cosmo Motors Toyota for the Food City 500.  He managed to avoid all the day’s wrecks, got his lap back as the Lucky Dog on Lap 340, and entered the Top 10 in the final laps.  In the final two cautions, DiBenedetto got two great restarts, springing him to 8th, then 6th at the checkered flag.  It was DiBenedetto’s career-best finish in his 41st start, besting his previous mark of 18th last spring at Talladega.  It was BK Racing’s first top-ten finish since Travis Kvapil’s 8th-place run, also at Talladega in the fall of 2012, the team’s first year of operation since acquiring the assets of Team Red Bull.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was DiBenedetto’s first last-place finish in an XFINITY Series race at Bristol.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #10-Matt DiBenedetto / 4 laps / vibration
39) #93-Josh Wise / 21 laps / transmission
38) #14-J.J. Yeley / 74 laps / electrical
37) #11-Blake Koch / 133 laps / running
36) #74-Mike Harmon / 182 laps / running

2016 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Jeff Green (3)
2nd) Matt DiBenedetto (2)
3rd) Ryan Preece, Josh Wise (1)

2016 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) TriStar Motorsports (5)
2nd) JD Motorsports, RSS Racing (1)

2016 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Toyota (5)
2nd) Chevrolet (2)

7/25/65: David Pearson’s first last-place finish comes after early Bristol wreck

SOURCE: NASCAR

On July 25, 1965, David Pearson picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Grand National Series career in the Volunteer 500 at the Bristol International Speedway when his #6 Southeastern Dodge Dealers 1965 Dodge was involved in a multi-car crash after 8 of 500 laps.  The finish occurred in Pearson’s 156th series start.

The career of Pearson, “The Silver Fox,” is well-known.  Second on the all-time wins list with 105 victories, the soft-spoken driver was already a household name in the mid 1960s.  From an owner-driver during his debut in the second Daytona 500 in 1960 through his signing with Ray Fox and, later, Cotton Owens, Pearson had racked up eleven victories in his first five seasons.  Though his first three wins came on superspeedways, the next eight came on short tracks like Bristol: half-mile dirt ovals in Myrtle Beach and Greenville-Pickens and paved bullrings like the third-mile Boyd Speedway on Tennessee’s opposite border.  He finished the 1964 season 3rd in points, and but for circumstances off the track, would have been a likely contender for 1965.

As it turned out, the July 1965 race at Bristol signaled the end of a longstanding feud between NASCAR and Chrysler.  As manufacturers churned out faster cars to compete on the circuit’s new larger and faster superspeedways, drivers became concerned that the racing had become too dangerous.  Their concerns were well-founded: the 1964 season was marred by the on-track deaths of Joe Weatherly, the defending series champion, Glenn “Fireball” Roberts, the sport’s first superstar, and rising talent Jimmy Pardue.  In an effort to reduce speeds, Bill France, Sr. mandated a new rule for the 1965 season that banned the Ford “hi-riser” engine and Chrysler’s dominant “hemi-head.”

While Ford accepted the changes, Ronney Householder, Chrysler’s Director of Competition, was furious.  The new rules would require Chrysler’s factory drivers to run heavy cars with underpowered engines, putting them at a significant disadvantage.  When a compromise wasn’t reached by the start of the 1965 Grand National Season, Chrysler boycotted the series, taking its factory drivers with them.  This included Richard Petty, who turned his attention to a brief and ill-fated run on the drag racing circuit, and David Pearson.

Without the series’ biggest stars and fastest cars, ticket sales dragged through the first part of the 1965 season.  Bill France’s gamble that Chevrolet would gain momentum hadn’t panned out, and Ford was on an unprecedented winning streak on the heels of 1961 series champion Ned Jarrett.  In May, NASCAR reached a compromise with USAC, whose series rules were more forgiving to Chrysler’s “hemi” in an effort to attract NASCAR drivers.  As part of the agreement, Chrysler could run in “hemi” in NASCAR, but only in models where it hadn’t been tested.  Though Buck Baker managed this “impossible” feat, jamming a hemi into son Buddy’s Plymouth Fury at Daytona in July, it wasn’t until Bristol later that month that the Chrysler factory teams - and Pearson - returned.

Pearson started 12th in the 36-car field.  The final starting spot went to independent driver Hollingsworth McMillion, who shortened his name to the much flashier “Worth McMillion.”  The Virginian trailed the field early in his #80 1964 Pontiac until trouble broke out in the early laps.  On Lap 9, Pearson was racing the Wood Brothers #21 1965 Ford of Marvin Panch for the 5th spot when the two made contact in Turn 3 and crashed.  Walking down pit road under caution, Pearson crossed paths with Glen Wood.  The two argued, and Wood threw a punch.  Pearson was about to respond when crew members intervened.

Pearson and Panch occupied the final two spots in the finishing order.  The next retiree was Raymond Carter, who was making the next-to-last start of his career in a backup 1964 Dodge for longtime independent Buddy Arrington.  Carter’s #62 pulled behind the wall after 32 laps.  33rd went to future pace car driver Elmo Langley, then an owner-driver in his twelfth season on the tour.  Langley’s #64 blew a head gasket one lap after Carter’s retirement.  Rounding out the Bottom Five was 27-year-old Bobby Allison, who was making just the 12th start of his NASCAR career.  It turned out to be the final Grand National start for Allison’s team owner Ed Grady, who fielded his #09 Ford.

Richard Petty, who also rejoined the series at Bristol, started outside-pole in his #43 Plymouth and finished 17th with a busted differential.  Ned Jarrett went on to win.

Pearson went on to run 13 of the 1965 season’s final 21 races, winning on the half-mile dirt track in Columbia, South Carolina and at the Richmond Fairgrounds, then secure his first of three series championships in 1966.  Pearson would go on to compete in 574 top-tier NASCAR races and finish last just five more times.  Only three of these last-place runs happened on track: the other two were post-race disqualifications for technical infractions in 1968.  The 1965 last-place run was also his only one at Bristol, a track where he’d win five times in just 20 starts.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was the first last-place finish for the #6 in a Grand National Series race since April 11, 1965, when Jim Conway’s 1964 Ford lost the clutch after the opening lap of the Atlanta 500 at the Atlanta International Raceway.
*To date, Pearson’s run at Bristol remains the only last-place run by the #6 in a Cup race at that track.  In fact, the #6 wouldn’t finish last in Cup again until September 11, 1977 at Richmond, when Rick Newsom’s unsponsored Chevrolet had an oil leak after 112 laps of the Capital City 400.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
36) #6-David Pearson / 8 laps / crash
35) #21-Marvin Panch / 8 laps / crash
34) #62-Raymond Carter / 32 laps / vibration
33) #64-Elmo Langley / 33 laps / head gasket
32) #09-Bobby Allison / 39 laps / overheating

Special thanks to Greg Fielden’s epic book series “Forty Years of Stock Car Racing” for providing the details behind this race.

CUP: Open Team Roundup - Texas

SOURCE: NASCAR Media

During another 500-mile endurance test under the lights at Texas, the four Open teams found themselves off the lead lap and racing each other for position.

QUALIFIED

#21 Wood Brothers Racing
Driver: Ryan Blaney
Started 7th, Finished 29th

At Texas, Blaney remained stellar in qualifying, matching his season-best 7th from the Daytona 500.  In fact, Blaney has only started worse than 14th once this season: a 23rd at Atlanta.  As in many of those starts, Blaney remained inside the Top 20 for most of the early stages, but just as at Atlanta and Fontana, late-race misfortune knocked him back through the field.  On Lap 106, just moments after a scheduled green-flag stop, Blaney was back on pit road again with a vibration in the rear of the car.  The stop dropped the #21 off the lead lap, and by race’s end, he’d lost three more.  Still, he remained tops among the Open teams - barely - for the fifth time in seven races.


Blaney and the Wood Brothers are no strangers to next week’s venue at Bristol.  Blaney and the #21 finished 22nd there last fall, the best performance by the Woods at the track since Ken Schrader’s 13th-place showing in 2006.  Still, Ricky Rudd’s 4th-place finish in 2005 remains their most recent top-ten finish, and they’ve won at the track once: Elliott Sadler’s surprise triumph in the 2001 Food City 500.

#98 Premium Motorsports
Driver: Cole Whitt
Started 37th, Finished 30th

One lap and one position behind Blaney came Cole Whitt, who only this week ran without a primary sponsor for the first time in 2016.  Just as in many of his starts this year, Whitt fought to stay on the lead lap.  Whitt kept race leader Carl Edwards behind him for the competition caution on Lap 30, and he made up a 30.2-second deficit.  Whitt was finally lapped on the 61st circuit by Martin Truex, Jr. and lost four more by the time the checkered flag fell. The 30th-place showing was just four spots short of a career-best at the 1.5-mile quad-oval.

Whitt’s best finish in four previous Cup starts at Bristol was a 27th in last year’s spring race.

#55 Premium Motorsports
Driver: Reed Sorenson
Started 40th, Finished 36th

Whitt’s new teammate Reed Sorenson returned for his second start of the season in an identically unsponsored #55.  Sorenson was among the slowest cars in practice and started shotgun on the field, briefly trading it with Chase Elliott during the green-yellow start.  Sorenson retook the spot at the green flag and, as at Martinsville, traded it with Josh Wise for most of the first half.  Sorenson went down a lap on the 19th circuit, but lost the Lucky Dog to Jeffery Earnhardt at the competition caution.  Sorenson lost 40th to Wise on Lap 36, and when he regained it on Lap 98, he was five circuits behind.  He climbed to 39th on Lap 110, then proceeded to outlast several Chartered teams in the final laps.  In the end, he passed late-race retirees Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer, and Brian Vickers to come home four laps behind Earnhardt.

Sorenson is set to make his 13th Bristol start and his first in Cup since 2014.  His best series finishes at the track are a pair of 15th-place finishes in the night race: one for Chip Ganassi in 2007 and another for Team Red Bull in 2010.

#30 The Motorsports Group
Driver: Josh Wise
Started 39th, Finished 40th

Wise finished last in Saturday's race, pulling a weekend sweep between the Sprint Cup and XFINITY Series events.  For more, see his LASTCAR.info feature.  Wise’s best finish in eight previous Bristol starts is a 23rd in the 2014 spring race, when he finished four laps down in Phil Parsons’ #98 Chevrolet.

DID NOT QUALIFY

None.

DID NOT ENTER

#26 BK Racing
#35 Front Row Motorsports
#40 Hillman Racing
#59 Leavine Family / Circle Sport Racing
#93 BK Racing

The five teams which last attempted the Daytona 500, six races ago, were again not on the entry list for Texas.

CUP / XFINITY: Josh Wise sweeps both last-place finishes at Texas

Josh Wise swept both last-place finishes in the Sprint Cup and XFINITY Series races at Texas.  Wise accomplished this once more in his career at Bristol in 2012, when he drove for Front Row Motorsports in Cup and The Motorsports Group in XFINITY.

SOURCE: Rubbin's Racin' Forums, FS1

On Friday, Wise picked up the 4th last-place finish of his XFINITY Series career in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at the Texas Motor Speedway when his unsponsored #93 RSS Racing Chevrolet fell out with brake issues after he completed 8 of 200 laps.

The finish, which came in Wise’s 144th series start, was his first since August 9, 2014, when his unsponsored #46 The Motorsports Group Chevrolet fell out with brake issues after 3 laps of the Zippo 200 at The Glen, 51 races ago.

Wise was making just his second XFINITY Series race of the season, following a 39th-place finish in one-off for Motorsports Business Management at Fontana.  RSS Racing’s second team, #93, has so far attempted the full season, but has finished under power only twice, most recently a season-best 19th with Dylan Lupton at Phoenix.  Wise joined an entry list of 42 competitors which was then pared to 41 following the withdrawal of Morgan Shepherd.  With 41 drivers going for 40 spots and the #93 having missed two races, Wise would have to make the field on speed.

Wise didn’t participate in the opening practice session, ran 32nd in Happy Hour, and improved further to the 28th spot in qualifying with an average speed of 183.181 mph.  Surprisingly, the lone DNQ on the day was all-time last-place leader Jeff Green, whose #10 TriStar Motorsports Toyota missed a spot on speed by three-tenths of a second.  It was Green’s first DNQ in the XFINITY Series since last July at Daytona.

Starting 40th on Friday was Todd Peck, once again running the former Rick Ware #15 X-treme pH Sports Water Ford he’d been driving since Phoenix.  The first caution for Daytona last-placer Ryan Preece’s spin on Lap 2 dropped the #01 G&K Services Chevrolet to last.  Soon after the restart, however, Wise pulled behind the wall with brake issues and claimed the last-place finish.

39th went to Carl Long, now without a partner after the indefinite suspension of Motorsports Business Management co-owner Derek White.  Long’s #40 Truxx Outfitters Dodge pulled behind the wall with engine trouble while second-year Cup driver Matt DiBenedetto took the helm of his team car, the #13 Chris Kyle Memorial Benefit / Truxx Toyota, finishing 32nd.  38th went to Jeff Green’s TriStar teammate J.J. Yeley in the #14 ZAK “Official Fuel dditive of NASCAR” Toyota, citing clutch issues after 40 laps.  Peck pulled off the track 2 circuits later.  Rounding out the group was Rick Ware’s #25 Lilly Trucking Chevrolet with which Cody Ware scored his worst finish of the season.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is the first last-place finish for the #93 in an XFINITY Series race since June 21, 2014, when Kevin Lepage’s unsponsored #93 JGL Racing Dodge broke a rear gear on the opening lap of the Gardner Denver 200 Fired Up By Johnsonville at Road America.
*This is Wise’s first last-place finish in an XFINITY Series race at Texas.
*This is the first XFINITY Series last-place finish for RSS Racing.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #93-Josh Wise / 8 laps / brakes
39) #40-Carl Long / 9 laps / engine
38) #14-J.J. Yeley / 40 laps / clutch
37) #15-Todd Peck / 42 laps / overheating
36) #25-Cody Ware / 85 laps / electrical

2016 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Jeff Green (3)
2nd) Matt DiBenedetto, Ryan Preece, Josh Wise (1)

2016 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) TriStar Motorsports (4)
2nd) JD Motorsports, RSS Racing (1)

2016 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Toyota (4)
2nd) Chevrolet (2)

SOURCE: NASCAR Media

Then on Saturday, Wise picked up the 7th last-place finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career in the Duck Commander 500 at the Texas Motor Speedway when his #30 CrawfestNB.com Chevrolet was involved in a single car crash that ended his night after 178 of 334 laps.

The finish, which came in Wise’s 134th series start, is his first since this spring’s race at Atlanta, five races ago.  Wise and The Motorsports Group become the first two-time last-place finishers of the 2016 Cup season.

Thanks in part to 39 and 40-car entry lists since the team’s DNQ for the Daytona 500, The Motorsports Group has made every race since.  The team had also finished under power in every race but last week’s engine failure at Martinsville and earned a season-best 34th at Phoenix.

At Texas, Wise was slowest in both practices, but was 39th in qualifying with an average speed of 184.963 mph.  His car also carried sponsorship on the hood for the first time in 2016: an upcoming crawdad festival in New Braunfels, Texas.

Starting last for the second consecutive week was Reed Sorenson, once again driving Premium Motorsports’ new unsponsored second team.  A lengthy rain delay forced a green-yellow start late Saturday night, during which time Sorenson actually lost the spot to Chase Elliott on Lap 3.  Elliott’s #24 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet had qualified 4th, but a transmission change after qualifying sent him to the rear for the start.  When the green flag finally flew on Lap 5, Elliott disposed of Sorenson, and the #55 was the first to be lapped on Lap 19.

Wise, who was running next-to-last for most of the early stages, first took the 40th spot when Sorenson moved by on Lap 36.  Eleven circuits later, Wise’s #30 was also the first to lose a second lap to the leaders, then a third on Lap 67.  Sorenson retook 40th on Lap 98 as both black Chevrolets continued to gradually lose laps to the leaders.  Around Lap 110, during a round of green-flag stops, Wise clipped the commitment cone and was penalized, costing him another lap and retaking 40th from Sorenson.  Wise then made contact with the outside wall, went to the garage on Lap 172, and came back out more than 10 laps behind on Lap 191.  The damage Wise sustained in his first brush with the wall must have broken something in the right-front, for on Lap 212, the #30 clobbered the Turn 3 wall, ending his night.

Finishing 39th was Greg Biffle, whose #16 Kleen Performance Ford slammed the Turn 2 wall.  38th and 37th went to two of the 13 drivers involved in a backstretch pileup on the restart following the Biffle wreck: Clint Bowyer’s lapped #15 Visine Chevrolet and Brian Vickers’ #14 Tax Act Military Files Free Chevrolet were among the 13 drivers involved in a backstretch pileup.  Rounding out the Bottom Five was Sorenson, who came home under power, 19 laps down.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is the first last-place finish for both Wise and the #30 in a Cup race at Texas.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #30-Josh Wise / 178 laps / crash
39) #16-Greg Biffle / 286 laps / crash
38) #15-Clint Bowyer / 289 laps / crash
37) #14-Brian Vickers / 290 laps / crash
36) #55-Reed Sorenson / 315 laps / running

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Josh Wise (2)
2nd) Aric Almirola, Matt DiBenedetto, Kyle Larson, Ryan Newman, Cole Whitt (1)

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) The Motorsports Group (2)
2nd) BK Racing, Chip Ganassi Racing, Premium Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports (1)

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (5)
2nd) Ford, Toyota (1)