CUP: Jimmie Johnson scores first last-place finish of Cup career

SOURCE: @NASCARonNBC

Jimmie Johnson picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career in Sunday’s Cheez-It 355 at the Glen at Watkins Glen International when his #48 Lowe’s / Jimmie Johnson Foundation Chevrolet was involved in a multi-car crash that ended his run after 52 of 90 laps.  The finish came in Johnson’s 529th series start.

In his 16th season, the 40-year-old former off-road racer from El Cajon, California remains one of NASCAR’s biggest stars, a six-time Sprint Cup champion with 77 victories.  Three years after his latest title, Johnson’s statistics remain staggering: since his first full Cup season in 2002, he’s scored no fewer than 2 wins and 20 Top Tens every single year.  His consistency can be attributed to a perfect storm of personnel and resources, ranging from crew chief Chad Knaus, part-owner Jeff Gordon, and the juggernaut of Hendrick Motorsports.  What most don’t realize is that Johnson had one of the longest streaks without a last-place finish in a Cup points race. Among active drivers coming into Watkins Glen, only Kevin Harvick’s mark of 559 eclipsed his own.

“Some cases I wish I would’ve been 43rd so I could’ve gone home earlier so I wouldn’t have to run around and finish 42nd,” Johnson said with a laugh during an interview with LASTCAR.info at Sonoma in 2014.  “You know, that stat speaks more to the guys getting the car fixed.  And I think these crew members, they’re supposed to work delicately on the race car.  And then when there’s crash damage they’re looking for the biggest hammer and the biggest saw and just looking forward to cutting stuff up and trying to get you back out.  So, I’ve got a group of guys who love to swing hammers and run saws, so they do a nice job getting us back on the road.”
 
Heading into Sunday’s 22nd race of the season, Johnson’s team has had to use the hammers and saws more than usual.  While he began the year with two wins at Atlanta and Fontana, the #48 had been knocked-out in three crashes in five races, starting at Pocono in June and extending through Kentucky and Daytona in July.  While solidly in Chase contention, ranked 4th based on wins, he sat only 7th in the overall standings.  His first pole of the season last month at Loudon proved a surprising boost in morale for driver and team, and coming into Watkins Glen the #48 team put together lead-lap finishes of 12th, 3rd, and 16th.  Johnson had already scored a road course victory at Sonoma in 2010, the beneficiary of Marcos Ambrose’s late-race stall in Turn 2, but was still searching for his first checkered flag in upstate New York.

40 drivers arrived at The Glen to fill as many spots.  Johnson’s #48 debuted a new black and silver paint scheme, his yearly drive carrying the logos for his children’s foundation, now in its 10th year.  Johnson ran 16th and 22nd in Friday’s two practice sessions, then on Saturday missed the cut for the final round of qualifying by 0.14 second behind Tony Stewart.  He’d start 13th with a lap of 124.981mph.

Starting 40th on Sunday was Landon Cassill, whose #38 MDS Ford was unable to make it on the track during qualifying due to a fuel pressure issue.  By the end of the first lap, Josh Wise had taken over the spot in The Motorsport Group’s #30 Chevrolet, nearly 12 seconds behind the leader.  Next to fall to 40th on Lap 4 was Austin Dillon, his #3 Dow Chevrolet scooped out of a mid-pack spot in the Inner Loop after contact from Jeff Gordon.  The contact caved-in the left-front of Gordon’s #88 Axalta Chevrolet, dropping him to the rear under the first caution on Lap 14.

Rear decklid of Michael Annett's #46 at Watkins Glen
SOURCE: @MichaelAnnett

One circuit after the Lap 16 restart, Michael Annett, running near the back of the pack in his #46 St. Jude Iowa Tournament of Hope Chevrolet, pulled behind the wall and was the first to lose a lap.  The car had brake issues so bad that Annett complained the pedal was hitting the floor.  LASTCAR.info was among the sponsors on the rear decklid of Annett’s Chevrolet, and it looked as though the car would also be today’s headline.  However, hard work by the HScott Motorsports team got the #46 back on track on Lap 33, 15 circuits behind.  Joining Annett in 39th, three laps ahead, was Regan Smith.  Smith was driving Tommy Baldwin Racing’s #7 Advanced Patient Care Chevrolet, its purple-and-tan scheme in honor of modified driver Donald “Dutch” Hoag.  The #7 had been forced to the garage on Lap 21 as the driver said “something came apart.”  Baldwin’s team also managed to patch the car together, and he returned three laps ahead of Annett, 12 behind the leader.

With all 40 drivers still running past the halfway point, the battle for last was still not over, though Annett was still assured of it if no one retired in the final 15 laps.  It was then that the first big accident of the day broke out off Turn 5.  Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., running near the middle of the pack in his #17 Ford EcoBoost Ford, hopped the curb coming out of the corner, lifting the right-rear tire off the ground.  When it landed, the car had hooked to the right and was out of control.  Stenhouse nosed into the barrier, then bounced back into traffic.  Johnson, running behind Austin Dillon after two penalties early in the race, found himself right in the middle of it.  Dillon cut left and Johnson tried to follow, but both struck the #17.  Johnson’s damage was the worst, destroying much of the passenger side.  All drivers involved walked away, but Johnson, Stenhouse, and Greg Biffle, also involved, were done for the day.

Under the red flag, the leaderboard indicated that Johnson was 37th, the lowest-ranked driver involved in the crash behind Dillon, Biffle, and Stenhouse.  Behind the #48 were 38th-place Josh Wise, still running two laps behind, and the repaired machines of Smith and Annett.  If all three drivers continued running and Johnson did not, the #48 would inherit 40th spot.

Four times in his career, most recently in 2014, Johnson had finished next-to-last in a Cup race, saved from last by the retirement of another car behind him.  One of the closest calls came in the 2012 Daytona 500, where he was wrecked by Elliott Sadler leaving the tri-oval on Lap 2.  Johnson held the spot for an instant before the #34 Scorpion Ford of David Ragan struck the #48 on the apron, taking him out of the race based on his rank the previous lap.  Just last October at Dover, Johnson held last for the longest time of any Cup race before, losing nearly forty laps due to a leak in the rear end after 103 of 400 laps.  The #48 team got Johnson back on track, and he passed the wrecked cars of both Jeb Burton and Brett Moffitt before the finish.  But this time was different.

When the race restarted, Johnson, Biffle, and Stenhouse were listed out of the race.  Dillon returned with the front clip removed from his #3 and wound up 31st at the finish.  First to move past the retirees was Wise, who slid Johnson to 38th under the yellow.  On Lap 66, Smith passed Johnson, dropping #48 to 39th.  And finally, on Lap 69, Annett powered past Johnson, securing the Californian his first-ever Sprint Cup last-place finish.

Biffle and Stenhouse ended up 39th and 38th, respectively, with Annett in 37th.  Rounding out the Bottom Five was Alex Kennedy.  Kennedy, making his first Cup start of the year in the #55 Chevrolet that Cody Ware attempted to make the field with at Sonoma, lost an engine down the front straightaway on Lap 77, ending his afternoon.

James Hylton, 1993
SOURCE: Dave Chobat

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*While this is Johnson’s first last-place finish in a Cup points race, it is not his first among NASCAR’s top three divisions.  That mark occurred on February 14, 2002, when Johnson pulled his pole-winning car for the Daytona 500 off the track after 41 of 50 laps of his first Gatorade 125-mile qualifying race.  His first in a NASCAR points race occurred o October 14, 2005, during one of his 93 XFINITY Series starts: his Lowe’s / Kobalt Tools Chevrolet crashed in Turn 2 after 29 laps of the Dollar General 300 at Charlotte.
*This marked the first last-place finish for the #48 in a Sprint Cup points race since February 28, 1993, when James Harvey Hylton, then 58 years old, broke the oil pan on his #48 Rumple Furniture Pontiac after 24 laps of the GM Goodwrench 500 at Rockingham.  Hylton, the subject of this LASTCAR retrospective last month, was the last owner to field the #48 in Cup (Trevor Boys at Pocono - June 13, 1993) until Johnson’s Cup debut in 2001.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #48-Jimmie Johnson / 52 laps / crash
39) #16-Greg Biffle / 52 laps / crash
38) #17-Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. / 52 laps / crash
37) #46-Michael Annett / 74 laps / running
36) #55-Alex Kennedy / 76 laps / engine

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Premium Motorsports (5)
2nd) BK Racing (4)
3rd) The Motorsports Group (3)
4th) Hendrick Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing (2)
5th) Chip Ganassi Racing, Front Row Motorsports, HScott Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, Roush-Fenway Racing (1)

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (14)
2nd) Toyota (5)
3rd) Ford (3)

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP

XFINITY: Strange qualifying crash begins Chris Cook’s short race at The Glen

SOURCE: @todd_morey

Chris Cook picked up the 3rd last-place finish of his NASCAR XFINITY Series career in Saturday’s Zippo 200 at the Glen at Watkins Glen International when his #40 Shockwave / OCR Gaz Bar Dodge fell out with suspension issues after 8 of 82 laps.

The finish, which came in Cook’s 15th XFINITY Series start, was his first of the season and his first since November 14, 2009, when his #47 ConstructionJobs.com Toyota overheated after 1 lap of the Able Body Labor 200 at Phoenix, 222 races ago.

The road racing instructor for SNT Motorsports Development has been active in NASCAR’s top three divisions since 1999, when he made his XFINITY Series debut at Watkins Glen and finished 39th.  On March 5, 2006, he finished a career-best 20th in the second-ever XFINITY race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, one year after finishing 28th in his Cup debut at Sonoma where he finished 28th for NEMCO Motorsports.  Saturday’s race at Watkins Glen would mark Cook’s return to the series for the first time since 2014, when he failed to make the same race for JGL Motorsports.

For the race, Cook climbed aboard the #40 Dodge fielded by Carl Long’s team Motorsports Business Management, the team which trailed last week’s race at Iowa with driver John Jackson.  He didn’t participate in Thursday’s opening session, ranked 32nd of 36 drivers in the second, and 34th of 41 in Happy Hour.  42 drivers made the preliminary entry list, but Morgan Shepherd withdrew his #89 before practice.  Cook managed to outpace the lone DNQ, David Starr in RSS Racing’s #93 Massimo Motors / Stripling Technology Chevrolet, and secure the 34th starting spot on Owner Points with an average speed of 116.730mph.  But it came at a cost.

When Cook headed out to make his timed run, the driver was involved in a bizarre accident.  When driving alongside Cody Ware in his father Rick’s #25 lily Trucking / Carport Empire Chevrolet, Ware unexpectedly turned left, colliding with Cook’s #40.  The contact destroyed the left-front of Ware’s #25 and caved-in the panel just behind Cook’s right-front wheel.  Both teams managed repairs, but both would be among the eight drivers sent to the rear for unapproved adjustments.

Starting 40th on Saturday was the #70 E-hydrate / Sammi’s Best Chevrolet of owner-driver Derrike Cope, who ended up having a harrowing day of his own.  Running laps down on the 59th circuit of the race, Cope slowed down the backstretch with an apparent brake issue.  Near the entrance of Turn 5, the overheated brake caliper breached the tire’s inner sidewall, causing a tremendous explosion that blasted the hood off Cope’s car.  Cope was uninjured, but his car was done for the day, leaving him 31st.

Cope didn’t hold 40th at the start, however, as one car was still sitting on pit road.  Ryan Ellis, back in Obaika Racing’s #97 Vroom! Brands Chevrolet, was stopped in his stall with an apparent radio issue.  Ellis missed the start, costing him laps early and keeping him last.  Moments later, Jeremy Clements was the first to pull behind the wall when his #51 RepairableVehicles.com Chevrolet broke a truck arm.  Moments later, Cook pulled his #40 to the garage, meaning that three cars were out of contention in less than 10 laps.  First Ellis, then Clements returned to the track, dropping Cook to 40th.  Cook was then joined by the #0 JD Motorsports Chevrolet of Garrett Smithley and Ellis’ teammate T.J. Bell in the #77 Vroom! Brands Chevrolet, who had both exited the race after 13 laps.

Rounding out the Bottom Five were the #18 NOS Energy Drink Toyota of Kyle Busch and the #14 Arthritis Foundation Toyota of road racer Tomy Drissi, both among the eight cars involved in a spectacular accident in the Esses on Lap 18.  Contact sent series veteran Todd Bodine’s #90 Glenora Wine Cellars Chevrolet into a spin, blocking the track for most of the field behind him.  Busch’s car was struck by the wrecked cars of Blake Koch and J.J. Yeley while Drissi, unable to slow, bounced off the outside wall and into Bodine.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was Cook’s second last-place finish in an XFINITY Series race at Watkins Glen.  The other came August 9, 2008 when he was driving the unsponsored #90 Chevrolet for MSRP Motorsports.
*This marked the first last-place finish for the #40 in an XFINITY Series race since May 17, 2015, when Carl Long’s Braille Battery / Grafoid Toyota fell out with electrical issues on the first lap fo the 3M 250 at Iowa.  The number had never before finished last in an XFINITY race at Watkins Glen.
*This marked the first XFINITY Series last-place run for Dodge since April 18, 2015, when Derek White’s own turn in the #40 Braille Battery / Grafoid Dodge ended with electrical issues after 11 laps of the Drive to Stop Diabetes 300 at Bristol.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #40-Chris Cook / 8 laps / suspension
39) #0-Garrett Smithley / 13 laps / overheating
38) #77-T.J. Bell / 13 laps / transmission
37) #18-Kyle Busch / 17 laps / crash
36) #14-Tomy Drissi / 17 laps / crash

2016 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) TriStar Motorsports (11)
2nd) RSS Racing (3)
3rd) B.J. McLeod Motorsports, Inc., Motorsports Business Management (2)
4th) Chip Ganassi Racing, JD Motorsports (1)

2016 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Toyota (11)
2nd) Chevrolet (6)
3rd) Ford (2)
4th) Dodge (1)

2016 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP

8/12/90: Greg Sacks wrecks hard at The Glen, Rick Ware makes lone Cup start

SOURCE: ESPN

On August 12, 1990, Greg Sacks picked up the 3rd last-place finish of his NASCAR Winston Cup career in the Budweiser at the Glen at Watkins Glen International when his #18 Ultra Slim Fast Chevrolet fell out in a single-car crash after 14 of 90 laps.

The finish, which came in Sacks’ 122nd series start, was his first of the season and first in Cup since August 21, 1988, when his unsponsored #50 Dingman Brothers Racing Pontiac had ignition failure after 21 laps of the Champion Spark Plug 400 at Michigan.

The career of Greg Sacks, and how he acquired his ride in the Ultra Slim Fast Chevrolet, was the subject of my 1990 Pepsi 400 at Daytona piece last month.  Driving a research and development #10 Chevrolet for DiGard Racing, Sacks, a former owner-driver, pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NASCAR history by dominating the 1985 Firecracker 400.  Following the close of DiGard, Sacks traveled between a number of single-car operations, including the Dingman Brothers, Baker-Schiff Racing, and Tom Winkle.

In 1989, when Paramount Pictures began production on “Days of Thunder,” Sacks was tabbed as both stunt driver and consultant, joining Bobby Hamilton, Tommy Ellis, and others.  In addition to closed-set work away from the crowds, Sacks made three starts driving the #46 City Chevrolet in place of Tom Cruise’s character Cole Trickle.  The race-ready cars, built by Hendrick Motorsports, turned in a number of strong runs with Sacks, who finished 2nd to Ken Schrader in the 1990 Busch Clash (now the Sprint Unlimited) then qualified 7th at Darlington.  At Talladega that spring, Hendrick decided to make this “movie team” permanent, and the #18 Ultra Slim Fast Chevrolet Lumina was born.

Sacks continued to impress, finishing a close 2nd behind Dale Earnhardt at Talladega, 7th at Pocono, then won the pole for the aforementioned Pepsi 400 at Daytona.  Unfortunately, just a few days after “Thunder’s” release, Sacks along with Richard Petty and Derrike Cope triggered a grinding 23-car wreck on Lap 2, allowing Earnhardt to walk to another restrictor-plate victory.  Following a 33rd in his return to Pocono and a disappointing 18th at Talladega, Sacks came to Watkins Glen for his first-ever start on his home track.

Sacks started 24th for the 90-lap race, and most importantly avoided trouble that weekend.  The Thursday before the race, a grinding three-car wreck in practice collected Mark Martin, Dick Trickle, and West coast regular Troy Beebe, destroying all three cars.  Beebe, knocked unconscious in the impact, had to be cut from his #93 Taco Bell Buick and was treated in the hospital for a concussion.  Trickle and Martin escaped with relatively minor injuries - though Trickle later handed over the controls to road racer Dorsey Schroeder - and qualified their backup cars 33rd and 3rd.  Beebe failed to qualify.

40th on the grid belonged to the #98 P&C Chevrolet of two-time ASA champion Butch Miller.  Miller, in his first season with car owner Travis Carter, attempted the most races of any of his seven Cup years - 23 of 29 - and two rounds prior earned a career-best 8th at Pocono.

Around Lap 5, 14th-place starter Kyle Petty made an unscheduled stop in his #42 Peak Antifreeze Pontiac punctured a left-rear tire and came in for new left-side tires.  Next to fall to the rear on Lap 9 was Ernie Irvan, who started 22nd and pitted the #4 Kodak Chevrolet for “a ratchet that turned loose.”  Lap 10 saw Ricky Rudd and Geoffrey Bodine spin in Turn 1.  However, the field was so strung out early in the event that none of these drivers spent much if any time in 40th place.

Sacks, meanwhile, made his own first stop for a cut tire on Lap 13, just as race leaders Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin streaked past into Turn 1.  Two laps later, as he led Dale Jarrett and Bill Elliott into Turn 5, Sacks’ car wobbled, then slid off-course and into the tire barriers.  Sacks climbed from the car uninjured, but his #18 suffered heavy damage to the nose and left side, enough to keep him out for the rest of the day.

39th went to owner-driver Jimmy “Smut” Means, whose powder-blue #52 Alka-Seltzer Pontiac broke the transmission after 33 laps.  38th went to ARCA driver John Alexander, who made his first - and only - Cup start.  Alexander’s ARCA car owner was Bob Schacht, with whom he finished a career-best 7th at Pocono.  On this day, the New York driver climbed aboard a #04 Ford for Charles Meacham, whose son John would drive in three Cup races over the next year.  37th went to SCCA road racer Oma Kimbrough, who made his second of three Cup starts for Jim Rosenblum’s Linro Motorsports - all at The Glen, and all DNFs.

Rick Ware at The Glen, 1990
SOURCE: Rubbin's Racin' Forums

Rounding out the Bottom Five was another driver who’d made his Cup debut: 29-year-old Rick Ware.  Back in 1990, the current NASCAR XFINITY Series team owner had been competing on road courses for years, running in both IMSA and Trans-Am, including the 24 Hours of Daytona.  His exposure to NASCAR began with the Grand-American Series companion events at the old Riverside International Raceway outside Los Angeles, where in 1983 he finished 3rd.  He moved back east and looked to try other forms of motorsports.  Then the deal to drive the #22 Otter Pops Pontiac came along.

“[T]he team owner was Buddy Baker,” said Ware during an interview at Sonoma in June, “22 was Buddy Baker’s team and Bobby Jones was running it for him, and that deal came about - Rick Mast was driving full time for him but there was a race at South Boston in the Busch car and Mast, who hadn’t done a lot of road courses, went and did the Busch car, so it gave me an opportunity to come in and do the road course deal.”

Prior to 1991, Cup Series teams ran bias-ply tires at Sonoma and Watkins Glen in place of the current radials.  The cheaper, more flexible tires were fast, but prone to flats, adding to the dangers of stock car racing’s fastest road course.  “We ran without the chicane and we actually turned the second-fastest trap speed as far as miles per hour on the backstretch,” said Ware.  “But it was dangerous.  The year after I did, that’s the year (J.D. McDuffie) died. . .I’m not sure if the racing got any better, but as the speeds went up, you needed to have the radial tires.”

Ware’s transition from sports car racing to NASCAR proved a challenge.  “Just that you think you’re fast until you go and run with these guys - you realize what fast really is, man.  These guys are the best guys in the world.”  Ware ran off-course in Turn 1 on Lap 10 and recovered, but was later the victim of brake issues.

Ware never made another Cup start, but has been a fixture in the series ever since.  One of the team’s greatest performances came at Road America in 2014, where Kevin O’Connell nearly earned the team its first XFINITY Series win.  “Kevin O’Connell, we finished 3rd, had a shot of winning it, that was a great race last lap, right down to the wire with Brendan Gaughan, and Tagliani passed us on the last tun of the last lap for 3rd and yeah, that was a really good run.  That was one of our highlights and we had a lot of - we finished 6th at Talladega, 7th and 9th at Daytona, you know, we’ve had some good runs on and off.  It’s tough to do on a regular basis if you don’t have the funding.  So, some of the races we can, you know, put a lot of effort into certain races to run good.”

This weekend at Watkins Glen, Ware has two cars entered in the XFINITY Series race at Watkins Glen.  The #25 will be driven by his 20-year-old son Cody, who attempted his own Cup debut at Sonoma in June.

After the 1990 Budweiser at the Glen, Greg Sacks relieved teammate Darrell Waltrip for three races in the #17 Tide Chevrolet.  Waltrip, injured during the Pepsi 400 weekend in a terrible practice crash with Dave Marcis, didn’t return until Richmond in September.  Sacks rounded out the year with Hendrick, then was released at year’s end.  From 1991 through 2005, Sacks would drive for 17 different Cup Series owners - including himself - and remained on a partial schedule.  A terrible crash at Texas in 1998 all but ended his career, though he made five more races in his own equipment and made an XFINITY Series start at Daytona in 2010.  Sacks’ 263rd and final Cup start came at Pocono on July 24, 2005, where his #13 Dodge lost the brakes after 5 laps and finished last.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first last-place finish for the #18 in a Cup Series race since November 6, 1983, when Joe Booher’s #18 Booher Farms Buick lost the engine after 2 laps of the Atlanta Journal 500 at Atlanta.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #18-Greg Sacks / 14 laps / crash
39) #52-Jimmy Means / 33 laps / transmission
38) #04-John Alexander / 35 laps / oil leak
37) #13-Oma Kimbrough / 40 laps / oil leak
36) #22-Rick Ware / 42 laps / brakes

CUP: Reed Sorenson earns Chevrolet’s 1,500th* last-place finish

SOURCE: @Dizneydreamer

Reed Sorenson picked up the 14th last-place finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career in Monday’s Pennsylvania 400 at the Pocono Raceway when his #55 Vydox Plus Chevrolet fell out with engine problems after 29 of 138 laps.

The finish, which came in Sorenson’s 248th series start, was his fourth of the 2016 season and his first since the Coca-Cola 600, eight races ago.  With 15 races to go, Sorenson ties DiBenedetto for the most last-place finishes in 2016, and leads the standings in a Bottom Five Tiebreaker of 7-6.

Sorenson’s most recent run at Pocono, when he and Premium Motorsports teammate Cole Whitt traded rides, resulted in the Georgia driver’s best finish at the time, a 28th, which he later improved with a 22nd at Daytona.  In the six races he’d run since the 600, Sorenson had improved on his starting spot and finished under power each time.  This time at the “Tricky Triangle,” the Premium teammates would remain in their normal rides with Sorenson in the white Vydox Plus-sponsored #55.

Sorenson trailed both practices and secured the 40th and final starting spot with a lap of 158.615 mph, more than three seconds slower than the next-fastest car of 39th-place Michael Annett.  That same weekend, Sorenson made his first career Truck Series start, coming back from a DNQ at Daytona for MB Motorsports to pilot Premium’s #49 Chevrolet.  Sorenson finished on the lead lap in 18th.

During the pace laps for Monday’s postponed event, Sorenson was joined at the back by Aric Almirola, whose Richard Petty Motorsports team changed the rear gear, and Kurt Busch, whose team was alerted race morning that they’d been penalized for an unapproved body modification.  By the time the field funneled into Turn 1, Busch and Almirola had already rocketed past Sorenson on the inside, and the #55 remained last through the early stages.  At the moment of Lap 17’s competition caution, Sorenson was still last, 7.253sec behind 39th-place Josh Wise.

Under the yellow, the first round of pit stops briefly shuffled 40th between Cole Whitt, Michael Annett, and then Jimmie Johnson.  Johnson, the 21st-place starter, had punctured the nose of his machine during the early laps, requiring a piece of black tape across the nose.  When the field went green on Lap 20, however, Johnson had already moved to 39th - Sorenson was also forced to make an unscheduled stop, and was still working his way through Turn 3 as the leaders took the green.  Sorenson caught up in short order as polesitter Martin Truex, Jr., running 3rd at the time in the same #78 Furniture Row / Denver Mattress Toyota he dominated with in the Coca-Cola 600, lost a right-front tire and smacked the outside wall.  Also struggling on that restart was Paul Menard, his #27 Moen / Menards Chevrolet from Indy fastest in the opening practice.  As the field headed into Turn 1, Menard couldn’t get into third gear and was nearly wrecked by Denny Hamlin.  Truex briefly held 40th, but the Furniture Row team managed to get the #78 back on track while losing just one lap, but Menard had to go to the garage, putting the #27 in last for the Lap 23 restart.

Back under green, Sorenson continued to have problems and made an unscheduled stop on Lap 31.  The crew came out on pit road and pushed him behind the wall - Sorenson was out with engine trouble.  Last-place Menard returned to the track on Lap 38 and looked to pass both Truex and Sorenson in front of him.  Menard dropped Sorenson to last on Lap 47 for the final position change of the day.  Menard kept going, finishing 35th, 19 laps down.  After passing Sorenson, he passed Truex, who continued to struggle.  The #78 cut another right-front on Lap 40, which required Truex’s own trip to the garage until he returned on Lap 59 on the same circuit as Menard.  The third tire on Lap 100 put Truex out for good, leaving him 38th.

Joining Sorenson and Truex in the Bottom Five were 39th-place Aric Almirola and 36th-place Jeb Burton, who tangled off Turn 1 on Lap 67.  Almriola’s #43 Smithfield Ford crossed the nose of Burton’s #32 Erie Insurance Ford, drawing the third caution of the afternoon.  Almirola was done for the afternoon while Burton finished under power, two laps behind Menard.  Between Burton and Truex in 37th was Joey Logano, who led 38 laps and appeared headed to a win at halfway.  But when the rains held off, Logano’s #22 Shell / Pennzoil Ford fell back in the pack and collided with Chase Elliott’s #24 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet in Turn 2.

Taking the win in the fog-shortened race was defending XFINITY Series champion Chris Buescher, who less than a month after scoring his first NASCAR last-place run at Daytona broke through with a surprising victory in his 27th career start.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first last-place finish for the #55 in a Cup Series race at Pocono since August 7, 2011, when J.J. Yeley’s unsponsored Front Row Motorsports Ford fell out with overheating issues after 7 laps of the Good Sam RV Insurance 500.
*This was Sorenson’s first last-place finish in a Cup race at Pocono.
*This marked the 1,500th last-place finish for Chevrolet across NASCAR's top three divisions, but with three caveats:

• First, as of this writing, there are 31 races where the last-place driver’s car make is unknown - many from the first years of both Cup and XFINITY competition.
• Second, James Hylton's Chevrolet from the 1991 June Pocono race may have actually been a Buick.
• Third, there were two occasions where smaller Chevrolet models finished last behind their full-sized counterparts.  The first took place August 16, 1963, when Bill Whitley’s #17X Corvette crashed after 1 lap of the International 200 at Bowman Gray Stadium.  The other occurred on August 28, 1971 when Dick Brooks’ #95 1969 Camaro overheated after 30 laps of the Buddy Shuman 276 at Hickory Speedway.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #55-Reed Sorenson / 29 laps / engine
39) #43-Aric Almirola / 66 laps / crash
38) #78-Martin Truex, Jr. / 82 laps / crash / led 16 laps
37) #22-Joey Logano / 115 laps / running / led 38 laps
36) #32-Jeb Burton / 117 laps / running

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Premium Motorsports (5)
2nd) BK Racing (4)
3rd) The Motorsports Group (3)
4th) Richard Childress Racing (2)
5th) Chip Ganassi Racing, Front Row Motorsports, Hendrick Motorsports, HScott Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, Roush-Fenway Racing (1)

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (13)
2nd) Toyota (5)
3rd) Ford (3)

2016 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP

CUP: Open Team Roundup - Pocono (August)

SOURCE: Rubbin's Racin' Forums

QUALIFIED

#21 Wood Brothers Racing
Driver: Ryan Blaney
Started 18th, Finished 11th

Blaney showed aggression in Monday’s race, determined to turn around a skid of finishing outside the Top 20 in three of the last five races.  He banged doors with Chase Elliott in the early stages, hounded the rear bumper of Tony Stewart past the halfway mark, and ran as high as 5th during pit stops.  In the end, he finished outside the Top 10, but in so doing tied his best finish since the previous race at Pocono, seven races ago.

Blaney prepares to make his Watkins Glen debut next Sunday, having never before run there in Cup or XFINITY.  The Wood Brothers will be making their 25th start at The Glen and their first since 2008, when Marcos Ambrose finished 3rd.  The Woods also stand out in Watkins Glen as one of only three winners on the course’s old 2.3-mile configuration: Marvin Panch took the checkers in 1965.

#98 Premium Motorsports
Driver: Cole Whitt
Started 36th, Finished 31st

During his pre-race interview on Monday, Cole Whitt expressed excitement for the chance to race on tracks requiring shifting.  Whitt ended up ranking second among the Open teams, coming home the third driver one lap down.  Next week, Whitt returns to Watkins Glen, where he hopes to pick up where he left off during his strong early run at Sonoma.  After a last-place run at The Glen after a hard Turn 1 crash in 2014 similar to Brad Keselowski’s last week in testing, Whitt rebounded last year to finish a solid 21st.

#30 The Motorsports Group
Driver: Josh Wise
Started 38th, Finished 34th

Locked-into the Pocono field following a disappointing DNQ at Indianapolis, lost a handful of laps in the first half of the race, and came home under power, six circuits behind.  Both Wise and Whitt previously drove for Front Row Motorsports, which broke through with its second Sprint Cup victory with rookie Chris Buescher.  Next week, Wise aims for his third Watkins Glen start - his first in two years - and looks to improve on the 38th-place runs he earned both times.

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

Reed Sorenson finished last in Monday’s race, the second time in three races that an Open team trailed a Cup field.  Next week at Watkins Glen, road racer Alex Kennedy will take the controls of Sorenson’s #55.  For more information, check out his LASTCAR.info feature.

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

None of the other part-time Open teams attempted the race in Pocono.