Small Team Storylines: Phoenix

PHOTO: www.morganshepherd.com

CUP SERIES
Camping World 500(k) at Phoenix

The current entry list includes 39 drivers for 40 spots, one spot short of a full field for the third week in a row.

Derrike Cope’s return continues this Sunday, where he will be making his first Phoenix start since November 10, 2002, when he came home 38th in BAM Racing’s #49 Dodge.  As on that day, Cope’s Premium Motorsports #55 does not yet have sponsorship, and reports indicate the same for the following race in Fontana.  One of Cope’s best finishes came at Phoenix in 1995, where he finished a close 2nd to Ricky Rudd.

Reed Sorenson, Cope’s teammate at Premium Motorsports, will drive the #15 Chevrolet for the third-straight week, and is also looking for sponsorship.  Sorenson’s best finish in 12 Phoenix starts was a 12th for Richard Petty Motorsports in the spring of 2009.  Car owner Jay Robinson’s came in Canadian driver D.J. Kennington’s series debut – a 35th – last fall.

Cole Whitt’s streak of two consecutive Top 20 finishes ended at Las Vegas, where he came home 28th, three laps down.  Still, the driver sits tied for 23rd in points with Ty and Austin Dillon and is looking for more this Sunday.  Whitt’s best Phoenix finish was a pair of 25th-place runs in 2011 and 2015.  Car owner Mark Smith last entered a Cup machine here in 2013, when Mike Bliss’ “start-and-park” #19 Toyota finished 42nd with brake trouble.  TriStar’s best Cup run there came in 1992, when Bobby Hamilton ran 8th in the #68 Country Time Ford.  After back-to-back weeks of sponsorship from Rinnai, this Sunday’s #72 will carry logos for Standard Plumbing Supply.

Corey LaJoie picked up his first Cup Series last-place finish on Sunday, and is again entered on this weeks’ list, keeping it at 39 cars.  Sponsorship for his #83 Toyota is BK Racing Graphics, his third different backer in as many weeks.  Teammate Gray Gaulding, 37th last fall at Phoenix for The Motorsports Group, is back for his third-straight race in the #23, which will also carry new sponsorship from SunFrog.com.  Both companies will be making their Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series debuts.

Matt DiBenedetto came home 26th at Las Vegas in Go FAS Racing’s #32 Can-Am / Kappa Ford, and now stands 22nd in points, one point ahead of Cole Whitt and the Dillon brothers.  The same paint scheme is expected to run this Sunday, where the driver’s best finish was 20th in this race last year and the team’s best was 32nd with Joey Gase that same day.

Timmy Hill is listed as making his second-straight start for Rick Ware Racing, whose car’s sponsor is again to be announced.  Hill’s best finish in three Phoenix starts came driving the #32 Go FAS Racing Ford when it was fielded by Frank Stoddard, running 29th in the fall of 2012.  It will be Hill’s first start at the track since he finished last there for Premium Motorsports in the fall of 2015.

XFINITY SERIES
DC Solar 200 at Phoenix

39 drivers are listed for 40 spots, this time with Cup veterans off the list for the first time this season in this Dash 4 Cash event.  Again, if unchanged, Phoenix will mark the XFINITY Series’ first short field of 2017, and its first since Mid-Ohio in 2014.

Both owner-drivers Mike Harmon and Morgan Shepherd, each still looking for their first 2017 start, are again missing from this week’s list.  Shepherd’s team reported they have prepared their #89 Racing With Jesus Chevrolet in Las Vegas for a run at Phoenix, but are also collecting donations to help the effort at www.morganshepherd.com.  Also missing from the list is Chris Cockrum’s #25, absent since his 34th-place finish at Atlanta.

After missing the preliminary entry list in Vegas, not one but both Obaika Racing Chevrolets are on the list for Phoenix.  The team’s driver arrangement returned to what was planned during the Vegas weekend: Stephen Leicht in the #77 VroomBrands Chevrolet and Josh Bilicki in the #97.  Both are driving 2015 Chevrolets, which may account for some of the team’s struggles in Las Vegas.  There, the #77 was withdrawn for the third-straight week while the #97 struggled for speed before crashing on Lap 5.  Bilicki and the #77 are still looking to make their 2017 debut.

Jeremy Clements, driving the only other 2015 Chevrolet on the list, again runs RepairableVehicles.com on his #51.  His 26th-place run last week in Vegas was his best of the season, and his best in 13 Phoenix starts was an 11th in the fall of 2014.

Joey Gase makes his 10th Phoenix start on Saturday.  His best drives at the track in Jimmy Means Racing’s #52 Chevrolet were a pair of 24th-place runs in the spring of 2014 and last fall.  An interesting statistic with Gase is that he has only failed to finish one of those previous nine Phoenix races – a transmission issue in the spring of 2013 – and has finished no worse than 33rd.

The restriction on Cup veterans at Phoenix appears to have included Jeff Green, who is not listed as driver of B.J. McLeod’s unsponsored #8 Chevrolet.  As of this writing, the #8 is the only entered car without a driver announced.  McLeod himself will again be in the #78, which he drove to his track-best 25th last fall, while David Starr will again drive the #99 Striping Technology Chevrolet.

Jordan Anderson pulled RSS Racing’s #93 Chevrolet behind the wall at Las Vegas, securing his first XFINITY Series last-place finish.  He is again listed in the Chevrolet for Sunday, and may again be making an early exit.

Motorsports Business Management team owner Carl Long is again entered in one of his cars, this time the #40 Dodge.  If the driver isn’t switched out, he will look to make his first race of the season.  Timmy Hill, who drove the #40 the last two races, is this week entered in the team’s #13 Toyota, and if he qualifies, will run double-duty for the second-straight weekend.  Last fall, Brandon Hightower earned MBM’s best Phoenix finish when he drove the #13 Dodge to a 26th-place finish.

One week after Martin Roy’s narrow escape from disaster at Las Vegas, Mario Gosselin is again the entered driver for his #90 BuckedUp Apparel Chevrolet.  The all-Canadian Gosselin team got its best Phoenix finish last fall, when Quebec’s Alex Labbe came home a strong 23rd in his series debut.

TRUCK SERIES
Next Race: April 1, 2017
Alpha Energy Solutions 250 at Martinsville

CUP: Corey LaJoie’s first Cup Series last-place finish comes after hard Vegas crash

PHOTO: @RacingUnderdogs

Corey LaJoie picked up the 1st last-place finish of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career in Sunday’s Kobalt 400 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway when his #83 JAS Expedited Trucking Toyota was involved in a single-car crash after 18 of 267 laps.  The finish came in LaJoie’s fourth series start.

The 25-year-old son of two-time XFINITY Series Champion Randy LaJoie, who now designs race car seats through his company The Joie of Seating, Corey LaJoie has been racing stock cars since his K&N Pro Series East debut at Thompson on July 11, 2009.  He then diversified across various short track divisions, winning his first-ever modified start at Atlanta in 2010, five K&N races in 2012, and three in ARCA in 2013.

In November 2013, on the heels of his limited ARCA season, LaJoie made his debut across NASCAR’s top three divisions in the XFINITY race at Homestead, where he ran 34th for Richard Petty Motorsports.  He then branched out into Trucks in 2014, running a pair of starts for Ricky Benton and coming home 10th at Bristol.  Less than a month later came his Cup debut at New Hampshire.  Replacing a retiring Dave Blaney at former “start-and-park” effort Randy Humphrey Racing, LaJoie ran the full race for 41st in the 43-car field, then improved to 35th the next month at Charlotte.

2017 sees LaJoie entering the battle for Cup Series Rookie of the Year, replacing Matt DiBenedetto as driver of BK Racing’s #83 Toyota.  Now an Open team (since BK sold the #83’s charter to Front Row Motorsports, who leased it to TriStar Motorsports’ #72 team), LaJoie had to race his way into his first Daytona 500, and did after a controversial accident with fellow Open driver Reed Sorenson.  A strange incident coming onto pit road during a green-flag stop left him 24th at the finish, and a smack to the outside wall on a restart at Atlanta left him 34th.  Curiously, LaJoie wasn’t originally listed as an entry for the Atlanta event, but the short field encouraged BK to enter the #83 for a guaranteed start.  He was already on the preliminary list for Las Vegas, where he would again be one of 39 drivers.

LaJoie’s sponsor for Las Vegas was JAS Expedited Trucking, which most recently backed Matt DiBenedetto’s run at Phoenix last fall.  The car ran 31st-fastest in Friday’s opening practice, qualified 34th with a lap of 185.554mph, then ran 34th and 35th in the final two sessions on Saturday.

Starting last for the second-consecutive Cup race Sunday was Rick Ware Racing, which this week brought Daytona driver Timmy Hill aboard the blue #51 Dashub Chevrolet.  Sunday was just over five years to the day of Hill’s Cup debut, when he got Ware’s team into its own first series race.  The team changed transmissions during the weekend, causing the team to incur an additional penalty that sent them to the rear.  Joining them were Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., sent to the back after wrecking his primary #17 Fastenal Ford in practice, and Danica Patrick, who had a new rear gear in her #10 Aspen Dental Ford.

On the first lap of the race, Hill lost last to Derrike Cope, who was making his first Cup start at the Vegas track since 2004.  Cope’s unsponsored black #55 Premium Motorsports Chevrolet trailed the leader by 5.302 seconds that time by, then passed Hill for 38th on Lap 2, leaving Hill last, 7.352 back.  On the twelfth circuit, Hill was the first driver to be lapped, and the leaders were soon catching Cope and the other drivers in front of him.  Then the first caution fell on Lap 19.

LaJoie was running near the back of the pack when his right-rear tire failed going into Turns 1 and 2, sending his car hard into the outside wall.  The right-front of his Toyota heavily damaged, the #83 slowed to a smoking stop against the inside backstretch wall, where he climbed out.  The car was towed to the garage, done for the day.

38th on Sunday went to point leader Kevin Harvick, whose late-race Atlanta misfortune was followed by a blown right-front tire that sent his #4 Mobil 1 Ford hard into the Turn 1 wall.  Hill came home 37th, out after 135 laps with suspension issues.  Patrick came home 36th, her #10 out with a late-race engine failure that triggered the deciding nine-lap sprint to the finish.  Rounding out the group was Cope, the final car to finish under power.  Cope spun down the backstretch on Lap 153 and took the checkers 13 circuits behind.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first last-place finish for the #83 in a Cup race at Las Vegas and the 19th in series history.  The number had not finished last in a Cup event since July 24, 2016 at Indianapolis, 19 races ago, when Matt DiBenedetto’s ScienceLogic Hybrid Cloud Toyota had engine trouble after 4 laps of the Combat Wounded Coalition 400.
*LaJoie is the third Cup driver to score his first last-place finish at Las Vegas, joining Steve Park (2000) and Kirk Shelmerdine (2004).

THE BOTTOM FIVE
39) #83-Corey LaJoie / 18 laps / crash
38) #4-Kevin Harvick / 68 laps / crash
37) #51-Timmy Hill / 135 laps / suspension
36) #10-Danica Patrick / 246 laps / engine
35) #55-Derrike Cope / 254 laps / running

2017 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) BK Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing, Rick Ware Racing (1)

2017 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Toyota (2)
2nd) Chevrolet (1)

2017 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP

XFINITY: Jordan Anderson makes ends meet as team, fans rebuild truck

PHOTO: @j66anderson

Jordan Anderson picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR XFINITY Series career in Saturday’s Boyd Gaming 300 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway when his unsponsored #93 RSS Racing Chevrolet fell out with electrical issues after 1 of 200 laps.  The finish came in Anderson’s eighth series start.

Last year, when he drove for Bolen Motorsports in the Truck Series, Anderson earned a career-best 11th at Gateway, turned heads at Eldora when his crew twice rebuilt his damaged truck to get it into the main event, and all the while continued to build a passionate fan base.  While driver and team parted ways by season’s end, the South Carolina driver is undaunted in his effort to ascend through NASCAR’s ranks.

The road has been rough.  Last month at Daytona, Anderson reunited with car owner Mike Harmon, who had put him in his #74 trucks since 2014.  The team arrived with a Chevrolet rolled out of a small Featherlite trailer, but ended up sixth-fastest of the ten drivers who missed the show.

At Atlanta, Anderson teamed with Rick Ware Racing, where Lucas Oil followed him from Harmon’s effort as primary sponsor.  This time, he out-qualified four drivers, only to be involved in the most spectacular accident of the day.  Contact from Korbin Forrister sent him into the grass, where the splitter dug in, destroying the truck.

While Anderson was uninjured, the accident has left him without a Truck Series ride.  He has since re-opened his fan-supported site www.sponsorjordan.com to raise funds for repairs, offering spots for both fans and sponsors to have their logos on his ride.

In the meantime, Anderson has also been tabbed by RSS Racing to drive their second entry, the #93 Chevrolet, during select XFINITY Series events.  The predominately “start-and-park” car, withdrawn from Daytona, made its 2017 debut with Anderson at Atlanta, where he started 26th and exited moments after Blake Koch’s accident for a 39th-place finish.  While the #93 was originally listed without a driver on Las Vegas’ preliminary entry list (along with the #24 for Drew Herring and #90 for Martin Roy), Anderson was added by Wednesday.  He did not participate in the opening practice, but ran 32nd of 41 drivers in Happy Hour.  His qualifying lap of 177.766mph was good enough for 30th on the grid.

By the same Wednesday that Anderson was added, the entry list itself grew from 39 to 43 cars, thanks to the addition of Mike Harmon’s #74 Dodge, Morgan Shepherd’s #89 Chevrolet, and what was going to be the first dual-entry of 2017 for Obaika Racing with its #77 and #97 Vroom! Brands Chevrolets.  Obaika originally listed Stephen Leicht as driver of the #77 with the #97’s pilot to be announced, but Leicht struggled to find speed in the second practice session.  He turned just one lap of 146.163mph, more than 7 seconds off the leader’s pace.  By qualifying, the #77 and Bilicki were withdrawn, putting Leicht in the #97.  Although he again ran the slowest lap in qualifying, just 162.518mph, Leicht got the #97 in on Owner Points, placing him 40th and last on the grid.

Last place changed hands several times in the first two laps.  Anderson joined Leicht at the back of the field by driver’s choice, just as he had at Atlanta.  Brandon Hightower, who like Anderson was out of a ride, picked up Carl Long’s ride in the #13 MBM Motorsports Toyota and also fell to the back by choice.  Timmy Hill, driving the second MBM car #40, fell to the back due to unapproved adjustments, and Leicht fell back a second time by driver’s election, reassuming his spot.  By Lap 2, Anderson had pulled his car behind the wall, finally ending the battle.

Leicht’s race ended just three laps later with a crash on the backstretch, sending his #97 behind the wall.  Hightower came home 38th, out with a vibration.  The rest of the Bottom Five was filled by B.J. McLeod’s team.  McLeod himself returned to the #78 for the first time this year, but brake issues stopped his @CouchCrewChief Chevrolet after 159 laps.  All-time last-place leader Jeff Green exited 18 circuits later, this time citing crash damage on his #8 Safecraft Safety Equipment / Momo Chevrolet.  Green narrowly averted more serious damage when Martin Roy sped full speed between his car and the #28 of Dakoda Armstrong.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the 12th last-place finish for #93 in an XFINITY Series race and the first at Las Vegas.  The most recent last-place finish for the number - and the second RSS Racing team – came June 19, 2016 at Iowa, 22 races ago, when Josh Reaume scored his own first last-place run after electrical issues 4 laps into the American Ethanol E15 250.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #93-Jordan Anderson / 1 lap / electrical
39) #97-Stephen Leicht / 4 laps / crash
38) #13-Brandon Hightower / 18 laps / vibration
37) #78-B.J. McLeod / 159 laps / brakes
36) #8-Jeff Green / 177 laps / crash

2017 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) B.J. McLeod Motorsports, Inc., Kaulig Racing, RSS Racing (1)

2017 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (3)

2017 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP

5/9/81: Mark Martin, Nashville, and one of NASCAR’s longest streaks without a last-place finish

PHOTO: Rubbin's Racin' Forums

On May 9, 1981, Mark Martin picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Winston Cup Series career in the Melling Tool 420 at the Nashville Speedway when his #02 Ams Oil / Prototype Pontiac fell out with a busted cam after 2 of 420 laps.  The finish came in Martin’s second career start.

One month before the Nashville race, Martin made his NASCAR debut at North Wilkesboro Speedway.  The three-time and defending champion of the American Speed Association (ASA), Martin had already made a name for himself by the time he climbed aboard the Pontiac owned by Bud Reeder, who was also making his debut as an owner.  Right after scoring ASA’s Rookie of the Year in 1977, Martin had won three consecutive titles, and in ’81 looked to transition into Winston Cup by driving the short tracks.  The car carried the same orange-and-white paint scheme as Martin’s ASA ride, the number changed from #2 to #02.

At Wilkesboro, Martin surprised early, qualifying 5th in the 31-car field, but rear end trouble knocked him out after 166 laps, leaving him 27th.  Much like Jeff Gordon’s debut at Atlanta in 1992, this was a changing of the guard of sorts.  In the same race, Richard Petty took the checkered flag, his 15th and final at North Wilkesboro.

Nashville, next on Martin’s schedule, began with just as much promise: he qualified 6th in the 27-car field, trailing only Ricky Rudd, Mike Alexander, Benny Parsons, Morgan Shepherd, and Darrell Waltrip.  Petty lined up the next row back in 7th.  Starting last that day was owner-driver Cecil Gordon in his unsponsored #24 Gordon Racing Pontiac.  Gordon, who claimed his second LASTCAR title that season, had climbed from 36th to 23rd in points, and was driving a Pontiac for the first time that year.  He held the spot for a brief time, as Martin’s car broke down under green, securing him his first last-place finish.

Finishing 26th that day was Alabama driver Charlie Chamblee, who was making his second and final Cup start.  Chamblee was driving a second Broadway Motors Pontiac owned by another owner-driver, Jimmy Means, the #52 decals swapped around to make a #25.  Chamblee exited after 10 laps with oil pressure as the listed cause.  The next retiree was veteran short tracker Jody Ridley in Junie Donlavey’s #90 Truxmore / Sunny King Ford.  As it happened, a much better day wasn’t far away – just eight days later, Ridley took the checkered flag in the Mason-Dixon 500 at Dover, Ridley’s first win in his 55th start.  It also turned out to be Donlavey’s first – and only – Cup victory, the highlight of a career that dated back to 1950.

24th that day went to Lake Speed, just in his second season on the tour, his #66 Pontiac out with alternator issues.  This turned out to be the only Cup start for one Harry Dinwiddie as a car owner.  One year earlier, the Tennessee-born Dinwiddie made his only Cup start at Talladega for 23rd-place D.K. Ulrich (who Martin would also drive for in 1983), coming home a strong 12th in the Talladega 500.  Dinwiddie’s own attempt as an owner-driver during the 1981 Daytona 500, driving the #49 Pabst Blue Ribbon Pontiac, ended with a hard crash off Turn 4 during Race 2 of the UNO Twin 125-mile qualifiers.

Martin’s last-place finish at Nashville was a turning point in many ways.  His next time out in July’s return to Nashville handed him his first of 56 career poles, followed by another at Richmond.  His first Top 5 came during a grueling afternoon in Martinsville that September, a 3rd behind Darrell Waltrip and Harry Gant.  Following a solid 1982 where he ranked 14th in points, Martin and Reeder parted ways, and the Arkansas driver would travel from team to team, looking to take his career to the next level.  A return to ASA for another title in 1986, then a decision to unite with Jack Roush in 1988 on a new Cup Series team, laid the groundwork for 96 combined NASCAR victories in a Hall of Fame career that lasted through 2013.

Another measure of Martin’s success is how long it took for him to finish last after that day in Nashville.  It wasn’t until April 14, 1996 that he trailed another Cup Series race, and even when his #6 Valvoline Ford trailed the First Union 400 at North Wilkesboro that day, he still finished under power, just 45 laps behind race winner Terry Labonte.  This streak of 14 years, 11 months, and 5 days covered 440 races, just 89 races less than Jimmie Johnson’s streak of 529 before his first 40th-place run last August at Watkins Glen.

As of this writing, Martin’s streak has only been eclipsed by Joe Ruttman, whose “start-and-park” effort at Rockingham in 2004 came 15 years, 6 months, and 22 days after his #31 Slender You Figure Salons Oldsmobile trailed at Talladega on July 31, 1988, 494 races previous.  Even then, Ruttman had been off the tour for eight of those seasons while Martin had for only two.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked one of only three occasions where a cam was credited as the reason a Cup Series driver finished last.  The first was May 4, 1980, when Darrell Waltrip’s #88 Gatorade Oldsmobile fell out after 4 laps of the Winston 500 at Talladega.  The other was August 16, 1981, when Dick May’s #19 Belden Asphalt Buick fell out after 4 laps of the Champion Spark Plug 400 at Michigan.
*This marked the first last-place finish for #02 in a Cup race at Nashville, and the first in a Cup race since April 15, 1971, when Jimmy Crawford’s Crawford Racing 1969 Plymouth had ignition issues after 1 lap of the Maryville 200 at the Smoky Mountain (Tennessee) Raceway.  The number has finished last 14 other times, most recently on November 21, 2004, when Hermie Sadler’s Drive for Diversity / Sam Bass Chevrolet wrecked on the opening lap of the season finale, the Ford 400 at Homestead.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
27) #02-Mark Martin / 2 laps / cam
26) #25-Charlie Chamblee / 10 laps / oil pressure
25) #90-Jody Ridley / 116 laps / engine
24) #66-Lake Speed / 125 laps / alternator
23) #40-D.K. Ulrich / 200 laps / engine

SOURCES
Racing-reference.info
Waid, Steve. “Driving career over, maybe, Mark Martin has place in NASCAR lore,” Motorsports Unplugged, December 28, 2013.

Small Team Storylines: Las Vegas

PHOTO: Michael Harvey @MrLester88

CUP SERIES
Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas

The current entry list includes 39 drivers for 40 spots, one spot short of a full field for the second week in a row.

Last week at Atlanta, Cole Whitt finished 20th, giving TriStar Motorsports its first back-to-back Top 20 finishes since May 1994.  The team will look to extend that streak to three races for the first time since the fall of 1992, when the late Bobby Hamilton ran 19th at Rockingham, 8th at Phoenix, and 12th in the historic Hooters 500 at Atlanta.  It will also be team owner Mark Smith’s 200th Cup Series start.  Florida Lottery, the team’s Daytona sponsor, is again listed for his #72.

With their first Cup Series start under their belt, Rick Ware Racing returns to competition this Sunday with Timmy Hill, the Daytona driver, behind the wheel.  It was at the Las Vegas track in 2012 that Hill gave Ware his first-ever Cup start, driving the #37 Poynt.com Ford a 42nd-place finish.  While the Spoonful of Music Foundation backed the #51 Chevrolet the last two weeks, as of this writing, no primary sponsorship has been announced.

Last Sunday marked the return of three-time LASTCAR Cup Series Champion Derrike Cope to Cup competition for the first time in more than seven years, and the short field gave Premium Motorsports’ #55 team its first start of the year.  While a broken power steering hose and tire issues left him 36th, the team finished under power and will again use the Chevrolet in Vegas.  The last time Cope started a Cup race in Vegas in 2004, his Arnold Motorsports #50 Dodge carried sponsorship from redneckjunk.com.  NASCAR intervened and had it shortened to rjunk.com.  No sponsor has yet been announced for this weekend.

Premium Motorsports’ Chartered car, #15, will be entered with Reed Sorenson behind the wheel for the second-straight race.  There is no listed sponsor for the car this week, but last Saturday cleaning service “The Maids” came on as a primary, swapping the car’s black scheme for bright yellow.

Corey LaJoie was a last-minute addition to last Sunday’s field, preventing it from being Atlanta’s shortest since 1976.  This week, LaJoie is already on the preliminary entry list with sponsorship from JAS Expedited Trucking on his #83 Toyota.  Fellow rookie and BK Racing teammate Gray Gaulding, who blew an engine late Sunday, is also listed in the #23 Schulter Systems Toyota.  Both will be making their Cup debut at Las Vegas.

As the team showed, Jeffrey Earnhardt’s silver-and-black #33 Chevrolet for Circle Sport / The Motorsports Group left Atlanta “without a scratch,” rebounding from a crash in Daytona to come home a quiet 33rd at Atlanta, eight laps behind.  Team brands Little Joe’s Autos and Curtis Key Plumbing are again listed as the car’s sponsors for Earnhardt’s second Vegas start.  He ran 33rd last year for Go FAS Racing.

Go FAS Racing’s current driver, Matt DiBenedetto, followed-up his sterling 9th-place finish in the Daytona 500 with a respectable 28th in Atlanta, keeping him 18th in the point standings.  Like Earnhardt, Sunday will mark his second career Vegas start, a track which saw him run 31st in 2016 for BK Racing.  Can-Am and Kappa are slated as the primary sponsors of the #32 Ford.

XFINITY SERIES
Boyd Gaming 300 at Las Vegas

39 drivers are listed for 40 spots, which if unchanged would not only mark the XFINITY Series’ first short field of 2017, but its first since Mid-Ohio in 2014.

As of this writing, three teams have no listed drivers: the #24 Toyota fielded by JGL Racing, King Autosport’s #90 Cote / Gamache Truck Center Chevrolet, and RSS Racing’s second team, the #93 Chevrolet which came home next-to-last in Atlanta with Jordan Anderson driving.

Joey Gase and the Jimmy Means Racing team, left off the preliminary list last week, are listed this week.  Among those missing are Mike Harmon, whose #74 Dodge had engine trouble in qualifying, Morgan Shepherd, who entered both opening rounds in his #89 Chevrolet, Chris Cockrum’s #25, and Obaika Racing’s #97 with Stephen Leicht.  Obaika, whose entries have traditionally appeared late in the week, may make the field a full 40.

After putting Clint King in his #78 Chevrolet for the first two rounds of the season, B.J. McLeod climbs back aboard his flagship car, and will once again be teamed with last-place record holder Jeff Green in the #8 Chevrolet (who ran a strong 26th in Atlanta) and Daytona last-placer David Starr in the #99 Striping Technology Chevrolet (32nd on Saturday).  McLeod finished 27th in Las Vegas last year.

Timmy Hill is slated to run double-duty in Vegas, pairing his Cup run for Rick Ware with a return to the #40 Toyota entered by Motorsports Business Management.  Team owner Carl Long, 0-for-2 this season in attempts, will again drive the #13 Toyota.  As of this writing, neither car has primary sponsorship.

Jeremy Clements will have a familiar look on his #51 Chevrolet as RepairableVehicles.com returns as primary sponsor.  Curiously, according to the preliminary list, his is the only 2015 Chevrolet entered in the event – all 38 of the remaining entries are running 2017 models.  Clements’ best Las Vegas finish in five starts came last year, when he ran 20th.

JD Motorsports’ trifecta of Harrison Rhodes (#01), Garrett Smithley (#0), and Ross Chastain (#4) all finished in the Top 16 at Daytona, but ran just 24th, 25th, and 27th at Atlanta.  The trio return looking to break back into the Top 20.  Chastain’s #4 is listed with GK Services as the primary sponsor.

TRUCK SERIES
Next Race: April 1, 2017
Alpha Energy Solutions 250 at Martinsville