TRUCKS: Norm Benning’s smoking engine makes the show - but not a lap - at Kentucky

PHOTO: FS1, Capture by Timecard100

Norm Benning picked up the 10th last-place finish of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career in Thursday’s Buckle Up In Your Truck 225 at the Kentucky Speedway when his unsponsored #6 Norm Benning Racing Chevrolet fell out with engine trouble without completing any of the 150 laps.

The finish, which came in Benning’s 171st series start, was his first of the season and his first in the Truck Series since last fall at Texas, 12 races ago.

The prolific owner-driver from Pennsylvania entered the 2017 season after one of the most difficult seasons of his career.  A streak of five consecutive DNQs at the start of the year kept him off the track until this very Kentucky race last season, when Mike Mittler had him drive his locked-in #63 Chevrolet.  At the end of the season, Benning’s #6 had made just three starts – one each with himself, Sean Corr, and Ryan Ellis, the last of which at Michigan earning the number its most recent last-place finish.

Another three DNQs opened Benning’s 2017 campaign, but he’s made every race since with a season-best 17th at Texas.  This summer, with the Truck Series now having trouble assembling a full 32-truck field, Benning has returned to entering his backup truck as a “start-and-park,” carrying his old #57.  Tommy Regan was the first to drive it last month at Gateway, finishing 29th in a field of 30, followed by J.J. Yeley’s last-place run at Iowa.  For Kentucky, there was no driver listed.  But by the night of the race, the #57 was driven by B.J. McLeod, who for the first time in his career would run triple-duty in Cup (for Rick Ware Racing in the #51), XFINITY (in his own #8), and Trucks.

Wednesday’s three practice sessions were cut to two as teams struggled to make it to the track on time, and lingering weather issues combined with a 34-truck entry list would make every second count.  In the first session, Benning came out on track in #6, but did not complete a lap, perhaps due to the very engine problem that ended his night Thursday.  He then turned his attention to the #57, running two laps, but anchoring the charts with a lap of 153.605mph, nearly six seconds off the lap of session leader Grant Enfinger.

The #57 then sat out Wednesday’s second session while Benning put up his required single lap in #6, running another three seconds slower at a conservative 141.025mph.  Despite the struggles, when rain canceled qualifying, Benning’s rank in Owner Points secured him the 17th spot on the grid.  The #57 also made the show on its five attempts, and B.J. McLeod was tabbed to drive.  This allowed McLeod to run triple-duty for this first time in his career after a similar last-minute deal for Rick Ware Racing’s #51 in Cup (on top of his own XFINITY ride #8).

Unable to put up a lap in qualifying, Joe Nemechek’s part-time #87 (with only two attempts) was sent home.  Jennifer Jo Cobb withdrew her second truck, #0, which was first listed for Tommy Regan, then later Joey Gase.  The #0 had three prior attempts in 2017, which would have put the truck ahead of Nemechek, but behind the #22 Tim Self-owned entry of Austin Wayne Self, which had four.  As a result, Self’s #22 Airflotek / Snap Track Toyota lined up last on the starting grid.

During Thursday’s pace laps, however, Self was joined by Chase Briscoe, who destroyed his primary #29 Cooper Standard Ford after a flat tire caused a hard practice crash in the Turn 2 wall.  Had the accident not happened, Briscoe would have started 3rd on points.  Both Benning and B.J. McLeod also went to the rear as they had both missed the driver’s meeting.  As the two black Chevrolets found their way to the back of the pack, Benning’s truck was smoking once more, and he pulled into the garage before he could complete a lap.  McLeod followed the next time by.

Finishing 30th was Dover last-place Camden Murphy in the Mike Mittler / D.J. Copp #63.  Continuing a trend from other Truck Series teams, Murphy’s #63 had a strip of tape across the driver’s side of the roof with “Monster Jam Cam” written on it, a reference to Murphy’s other driving duties in the Pirate’s Curse monster truck.

29th went to Matt Mills, who drove in a combined effort between Martins Motorsports and Faith Motorsports.  While Martins sold the #44 to Faith earlier this year, the threat of rain risked Martins’ own #42 Thompson Electric Chevrolet missing another race, so they changed the truck number to ensure Faith’s spot in the field.  Unfortunately, Mills drew the first caution on Lap 22 when he lost control as the leaders lapped him in Turn 4, causing the #44 to hit the wall with the right-front.

Rounding out the Bottom Five was Grant Enfinger, whose fast #98 Ride TV Toyota led five laps early only to be eliminated in a multi-truck accident with Ben Rhodes, T.J. Bell, and Matt Crafton.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*Benning himself scored the number’s only other last-place finish at Kentucky in 2015, when his #6 Chevrolet had engine troubles after 2 laps of the UNOH 225.
*This marked the second time in three races where the Truck Series’ last-place finisher did not complete the opening lap, joining Jennifer Jo Cobb’s race last month at Gateway.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
32) #6-Norm Benning / 0 laps / engine
31) #57-B.J. McLeod / 1 lap / overheating
30) #63-Camden Murphy / 10 laps / electrical
29) #44-Matt Mills / 20 laps / crash
28) #98-Grant Enfinger / 41 laps / crash / led 5 laps

2017 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Copp Motorsports, Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing, Norm Benning Racing (2)
2nd) Halmar Friesen Racing, MB Motorsports, MDM Motorsports, TJL Motorsports (1)

2017 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (10)

2017 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP

4/12/58: 1958 LASTCAR Cup Series Champion Neil Castles secures first last-place finish for car #86

PHOTO: Sue George and Roger Newman,
Winged Warriors

On April 12, 1958, Henry Neil “Soapy” Castles picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Grand National Series career in Race No. 9 at the Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds when his unsponsored #86 1956 Ford fell out with a busted oil line after 6 of 200 laps.  The finish came in Castles’ eighth series start.

Nicknamed “Soapy” because his first racing experience was in the soapbox derby, it wasn’t long before Castles began to climb his way up the NASCAR ladder.  A race shop was on his paper route, and he would often stop by to help clean parts.  In time, he was able to tune his own midget, then a Ford sports car.  By 1951, the 17-year-old Castles had made a name for himself, and was given the opportunity to help spearhead Ford’s effort in the second annual Southern 500 at Darlington.  Working with car owner R.H. Yandell, Castles helped prepare a 1951 Ford for Buddy Shuman.  One of them, driven by Buddy Shuman, finished 3rd in the 500, trailing the Hornets of Herb Thomas and Jesse James Taylor.

Castles’ own NASCAR driving career began in 1957, where he competed in both Grand National and the short-lived Convertible Series.  His first NASCAR start came in the convertibles on March 17, 1957 at the Greensboro (North Carolina) Fairgrounds.  Still running Fords, Castles brought his own #55 1956 Ford to the track, qualified next-to-last in the 21-car field, and made his way to 14th before overheating issues ended his day.  His debut in what is now the Cup Series came three months later on June 20, where he finished 18th of 21 drivers in another Ford belonging to owner-driver Bill Champion.  In early 1958, he finished 26th of 30 at Concord, then had his best run at the time, a 15th at Columbia.

Next on the schedule came the Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds (formerly known as the Hub City Speedway), a half-mile dirt track in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  Castles had raced at the track once before the previous May, finishing 15th of 18 drivers in a convertible race won by Curtis Turner.  He qualified 17th a 27-car field led by defending Southern 500 winner Speedy Thompson.  Starting last was fellow Convertible Series driver Billy Rafter, who finished 3rd in NASCAR’s first trip to his home track in Hamburg, New York on September 18, 1949.  Rafter ended up 10th at Piedmont while Castles’ oil line issue left him last.  It was the first of three last-place runs for Castles that year, securing him the 1958 LASTCAR Cup Series title.

26th in the final running order was Cotton Owens, another prolific mechanic and driver from the modified ranks.  After scoring his first of nine career wins on the treacherous Daytona Beach-Road Course in 1957, Owens started outside-pole in Jim Stephens’ #6 1957 Pontiac before the fan belt snapped.  25th went to Pennsylvania driver Carl Tyler, who had started alongside Castles in his fourth series start.  A spark plug was to blame for the Lap 31 exit of Tyler’s #85 1957 Ford.  Rounding out the Bottom Five were 24th-place Billy Carden, who would go on to win his only convertible race at Columbia on May 2, and Monroe, North Carolina’s Jimmy Thompson, who finished 10th in the first NASCAR race ever run on June 19, 1949.

Castles would go on to have one of the longest careers in Cup Series history, making 498 starts over 19 seasons.  He earned his first of 178 Top Tens at the Hickory Speedway on April 15, 1960, finishing 9th in a 1958 Ford.  The first of 51 Top Fives came three years later at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where he ran 4th in a race won by Ned Jarrett (and was the first Cup start for 24-year-old J.D. McDuffie, who came finished 12th in the field of 18).  It was that same 1963 season when Castles drove for Hall of Fame driver Buck Baker, switching from Ford to run a year-old Chrysler alongside Baker’s Pontiac.  When Castles returned to the Piedmont track in 1966 driving Baker’s car, Castles scored the first of four runner-up finishes, trailing Elmo Langley by four laps.

Castles returned to owner-driver duty in 1967, continuing his relationship with Mopar and switching his car number to the #06.  It was with this number, and a clean white paint scheme with a few red flourishes (“It looks better,” said Castles of the paint scheme), that Castles enjoyed the best years of his career.  His best points finish came in 1969, when he ranked 4th behind David Pearson, Richard Petty, and James Hylton.  Despite running just 52 of the 54 races that year, he scored 14 Top Fives and 30 Top Tens.  He led his first laps that year as well, pacing the field at Hickory for 29 laps before Bobby Isaac made the winning pass with 61 remaining.  He’d also finished runner-up to Isaac at Beltsville earlier that year.

Like Jimmy Massey, whose runner-up finish to Richard Petty became the subject of a song, Castles’ near-misses also fell into legend.  According to Peter Golenbock’s book American Zoom, Castles was lapping Curtis Turner.  Knowing of Castles’ winless record, the flagman didn’t believe he was on the lead lap, and kept waving the “move over” flag to Castles as he drove by.  “The starter kept doing this,” said Castles, “and I was getting real mad, so I just picked up my gun and when I come by the stand the next time I took aim and shot that. . .flag out of his hand.”

Castles finished 5th in the 1970 standings, his second year campaigning the winged Dodge Daytonas and Plymouth Superbirds, acquiring cars from Cotton Owens and Ray Fox in addition to cars he modified himself.  Sponsorship came from the local Dodge dealers who provided him parts and sheet metal for his race car: “Every town we went to,” said Castles, “we went to the Dodge dealership, the Chrysler dealership, and all the used sheet metal they had took off, we looked at fenders and doors, whatever. Back then in sheet metal, anything that was used they could give to you. And in turn, we would put their name, the Dodge dealership name on the car. We had on the car--Dodge Dealer--and we'd just take whatever town we were in, we'd make up little decals for the last guy there and stick them on there and that was the guy that got the advertisement. We did that all over the country.”

Castles scaled back his Cup operation in 1971, and would run a partial schedule for the rest of his career.  He would find success in the NASCAR Grand National East Series, the championship consisting of tracks removed from the Cup Series schedule.  Castles won two races in the 1972 East campaign – one over Elmo Langley at Greenville-Pickens Speedway and another over H.B. Bailey at the Smokey Mountain Raceway in Tennessee – and edged Langley for the season championship.  He then finished second in the standings to Tiny Lund in the East’s final season in 1973.

Though he would go winless through his final start at Dover on May 16, 1976, where he finished next-to-last ahead of Bruce Hill, Castles would also field cars for other drivers, including Harry Gant, Dave Marcis, and his rival Bobby Isaac.  Castles retired with 16 last-place finishes in the Cup Series, which currently ties him for 9th in the all-time Cup Series rankings with Todd Bodine, Junior Johnson, Kyle Petty, and Darrell Waltrip.

Since his retirement, Castles has been active in film, and now boasts his own IMDb page.  He has three screen appearances to his name including feature films “The Night of the Cat” and “Thunder in Carolina,” and has also provided cars, transportation work, and even stunts in other feature films.

For more on Castles, I’d highly recommend checking out this extensive 2006 interview with him by Sue George, from which many of the above details were taken.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first-ever last-place finish for car #86 in a Cup Series race.  As of this writing, the number has trailed just 17 Cup Series fields and none since July 15, 1969, when Bill Champion took his own turn in Castles’ #86 1969 Dodge at the Beltsville (Maryland) Speedway, retiring with ignition failure after 3 laps.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
27) #86-Neil Castles / 6 laps / oil line
26) #6-Cotton Owens / 14 laps / fan belt
25) #85-Carl Tyler / 31 laps / spark plug
24) #9-Billy Carden / 44 laps / axle
23) #55-Jimmy Thompson / 49 laps / oil pressure

SOURCES
*Golenbock, Peter. American Zoom: Stock Car Racing – From the Dirt Tracks to Daytona, Macmillan General Reference, 1994.
*Legends of NASCAR – Neil Castles
*Neil Castles Interview at Winged Warriors / NBOA 2006 Fall Meet In St. Louis
*Racing-reference.info

Preliminary Entry List Storylines: Kentucky

PHOTO: @TimmyHillRacer

CUP SERIES
Quaker State 400 at Kentucky

For just the seventh time in 19 races and the second week in a row, there will be a 40-car field this Saturday.  Ironically, it was at this same Kentucky track in 2014 that saw the Cup Series’ first short field since 2001.

The #75 Beard Oil Chevrolet is not entered this weekend (and will likely not return until this fall’s race at Talladega), but what a run they had last Saturday with Brendan Gaughan.  Despite contact from Kurt Busch sending his car into the wall, Gaughan rebounded to finish 7th, his best Cup performance since running 6th in the 2004 season finale at Homestead.

Welcome back Carl Long and the #66 Motorsports Business Management Chevrolet, a team we last saw finish 28th at Dover with Timmy Hill.  While Long is listed as the driver, a tweet by Hill indicates he may again be the driver of the green-and-gold machine.  Regardless, it will be the first-ever Kentucky start for either Long or Hill in the Cup Series.  (Both Long and Hill are again entered in the XFINITY race with Long in the #40 Chevrolet and Hill in the #13 Toyota).

Also back in the Cup garage is Gray Gaulding, who we last saw in the series last month at Pocono, finishing 29th in BK Racing’s #23 Toyota.  A tweet from Gaulding on June 27 indicated that he will be driving for Premium Motorsports at both Kentucky and next Sunday in New Hampshire.  Which of the two Toyotas is still to be determined.  The #15 is currently listed with the driver “to be announced” while Derrike Cope is listed in the #55 that was piloted last Saturday by Reed Sorenson.  Depending on who is placed where, it could be either Gaulding and Cope’s first Cup start at Kentucky or Sorenson’s fourth in a row, following a 27th-place run here last year.

Speaking of BK Racing, the team has elected the same driver lineup at Daytona with Corey LaJoie and Ryan Sieg.  Both drivers had very different nights - while the first of a series of early engine failures ended Sieg’s run in the #83, leaving him last, LaJoie worked his way into the Top Five late and finished a career-best 11th.  Sieg will run double-duty at Kentucky this weekend, a track that has been one of his best.  In six previous starts, his best finish was a 12th in 2015, and he’s never finished worse than 21st.

Also listed as “to be announced” is Rick Ware Racing’s #51 Chevrolet, which we last saw at Sonoma with road racer Josh Bilicki.  The Ware team’s two best finishes of the year came in the two previous night races on 1.5-mile tracks with Timmy Hill coming home 28th at Kansas and 29th at Charlotte.  If Hill is selected to drive MBM’s #66 and Cody Ware is still recovering from back issues from last month, it is anyone’s guess who will be behind the wheel.

With Aric Almirola’s expected return drawing near, Darrell Wallace, Jr. is again in Richard Petty Motorsports’ #43 Smithfield Ford.  Wallace had a good run going last Saturday in Daytona, making his own bid for a Top 10 in the late stages before settling for 15th.  In four XFINITY starts at Kentucky, Wallace has led in three of them and never finished worse than 9th with a track-best 5th last year.

Another driver to watch will be Cole Whitt, who ended up next-to-last in Daytona in TriStar Motorsports’ third engine failure since the Coca-Cola 600.  Last year, Whitt’s second-best finish of the Cup season came at the Kentucky track, where he finished 21st in the #98 Speed Stick Chevrolet.  RTIC is again the listed sponsor for Whitt’s blue #72 Chevrolet.

Give a call to Michael McDowell, who not only finished a career-best 4th at Daytona after challenging for the lead on the final lap, but also ran 14th the previous week in Sonoma.  McDowell is another driver to watch on the 1.5-mile track as his second-best finish of the year came at Kansas, where he ran 13th.  This year, he will finally get a chance to run a Cup race at Kentucky for the first time since 2013, when he finished 38th for frequent LASTCAR contenders Phil Parsons Racing.

XFINITY SERIES
Alsco 300 at Kentucky

For the first time since the second race of the season in Atlanta back in March, there are 44 cars on the preliminary entry list for 40 spots.

Last week at Daytona, JD Motorsports withdrew their fourth team, a #15 Chevrolet to be driven by Corey LaJoie.  This time around, the car is again entered, this time with Joe Nemechek behind the wheel.  If he qualifies, Nemechek will make his first XFINITY Series start since July 1, 2016 at Daytona, when he ran 36th in his own #87 Fleetwing Toyota after an early crash.  If he finishes last on Friday (or in Thursday’s Truck Series race, where he again runs his #87), he will break a tie with Morgan Shepherd for the second-most last-place finishes in NASCAR history with the 40th of his career.  Shepherd, who also withdrew last week in Daytona, is again entered in his #89 Visone RV Chevrolet.

B.J. McLeod is back in his own #8 Chevrolet this week, and the driver for his #78 Chevrolet is still “to be announced.”  Tommy Joe Martins, who challenged for a Top 10 in the #78 at Iowa, has stated he will run the car again in Indaianapolis at the end of the month.  In his place will be Angela Ruch (formerly Angela Cope), who will drive to raise funds for the “Give a Child a Voice” foundation.  Ruch, whose last XFINITY start was a last-place run at Charlotte in 2012, took on the cause after her 16-year-old nephew Eric Erdman was diagnosed with brain cancer.

Jeff Green, who finished 20th for McLeod last week in Daytona, is back with RSS Racing this time around, where he will likely be on “start-and-park” duty in the #93 RSS Racing Chevrolet.  A last-place finish by Green would allow him to take the 2017 LASTCAR XFINITY Series lead from Jordan Anderson on a bottom-five tiebreaker of 8-6.

Following the disastrous wreck that eliminated both of Mario Gosselin’s cars at Daytona, King Autosport has just one car entered this week – the #90 Chevrolet for Brandon Brown.  While Brown has never made an XFINITY start at Kentucky, he has made two races there in the Truck Series for his family’s team Brandonbilt Motorsports with a best finish of 20th last year.

JGL Racing will again be ones two watch this weekend.  Jeb Burton, fresh from his 4th-place run last week in Daytona, is back in the #24 Estes Express Lines Toyota.  Burton’s last XFINITY start here came in 2013, when he finished 8th for Turner Motorsports, and he ran 9th for Turner in that year’s Truck Series race.  His teammate, Dakoda Armstrong, roars into Kentucky with finishes of 5th at Iowa and 3rd at Daytona in his last two starts, extending a streak of six consecutive top-twenty finishes.  Armstrong’s best XFINITY finish at Kentucky was his first in 2013 where he ran 13th, and he’s never run worse than 20th in seven series starts.

Another one to watch will again be Quin Houff, who makes his fourth XFINITY Series start this weekend in the #46 beatincancerwithduke.org Chevrolet.  This Friday marks Houff’s first series start on a track over a mile in length, following a 12th at Iowa, 15th at Bristol, and 27th at Richmond.

TRUCK SERIES
Buckle Up In Your Truck 225 at Kentucky

After three races struggling to make full fields, 34 trucks are entered to attempt the Kentucky weekend opener’s 32-truck field, including Kansas last-placer Stewart Friesen, who returns after the Halmar Friesen Racing team’s two-week hiatus.

Despite the size of the list, six trucks are missing from the previous entry list, all of them from smaller teams: the second Al Niece Chevrolet #38, the second Randy Young entry #20, the second Mike Mittler / D.J. Copp Chevrolet #36, Ted Minor’s #14 for owner Boyd Long, the Martins Motorsports #42 that was withdrawn in Iowa, and Jesse Little’s #97 which came home a solid 9th at Iowa.

Returning in their place are four fully-sponsored entries: Austin Wayne Self in his family’s #22 Airflotek / Don’t Mess With Texas / Snap Track Toyota, triple-duty driver Kyle Busch in his own #46 Banfield Pet Hospital Toyota, Parker Kligerman in Charlie Henderson’s prolific #75 Food Country USA / Lopez Wealth Management / Tide PODS Toyota, and Regan Smith in the Ricky Benton’s #92 BTS Tire & Wheel / Commercial Tire & Service / Advance Auto Parts / Carquest / Valvoline Ford (a fifth truck returning this week is Faith Motorsports’ #44 - more on that team below).

Currently, two teams do not have drivers listed.  The first is the second Norm Benning truck, #57, which we last saw trail the field at Iowa with J.J. Yeley.  Yeley is this week listed in D.J. Copp’s #83 Fr8Auction.com Chevrolet in addition to his TriStar entry in XFINITY.  Tommy Regan, who drove the #57 at Gateway before his Cup debut at Sonoma, returns to Jennifer Jo Cobb’s #0 Driven2Honor.org Chevrolet with Cobb herself in the #10.  The other “to be announced” entry is Faith Motorsports’ #44 Chevrolet, which last took the green flag with Donnie Levister at Gateway before withdrawing at Iowa.

Austin Hill returns to the #02 Whitetail Heaven Outfitters Ford for the first time since Gateway, where he again tied his season-best finish of 14th from Martinsville and Kansas.  This will be Hill’s second-straight start in this event after he ran 18th here last year.  Also returning for the first time since Gateway is Travis Kvapil, who we last saw finish 27th for Bolen Motorsports.  The 2003 series champion will now drive for his third different team in 2017, taking the controls of Mike Mittler’s #63 Mittler Brothers / Ski Soda Chevrolet.  The Bolen entry returns to XFINITY regular Ross Chastain, who last raced in the series during his tripleheader at Dover, finishing 15th on the Truck side.

Ryan Truex – he of the best fan t-shirts in the game – comes into Kentucky looking to continue his solid 2017 season.  Overheating issues at Iowa ended a streak of six straight top-ten finishes that have put him 7th in the standings, a streak highlighted by a season-best 4th at both Charlotte and Texas.  Truex has never made a Truck Series start at Kentucky, but he finished 33rd in his lone Cup start there in 2014 for BK Racing and 28th for Biagi-DenBeste Racing in 2015’s XFINITY event.

CUP: Ryan Sieg's the first of four early engine failures at difficult Daytona

PHOTO: Rubbin's Racin' Forums

Ryan Sieg picked up the 1st last-place finish of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career in Saturday’s Coke Zero 400 at the Daytona International Speedway when his #83 Dustless Blasting Toyota fell out with engine trouble after 7 of 163 laps.  The finish came in Sieg’s third series start.

Though Saturday’s finish wasn’t what he wanted, 2017 has been a landmark year in Sieg’s career, the culmination of a measured march through NASCAR’s ranks.  The son of Rod Sieg, who in 1982 co-founded S&W Towing in the family’s native Tucker, Georgia, Ryan’s racing career began in go-karts.  By 2005, the 18-year-old Ryan made his NASCAR Southeast Series debut at the Montgomery Motor Speedway, finishing 18th in a field of 20.  From the start, Ryan Sieg drove for the team his father founded, RSS Racing, often with S&W as the sponsor.

In 2009, Sieg and the RSS Racing team made the jump to the Camping World Truck Series.  Following a one-off for Dwayne Gaulding at Martinsville, where he finished 34th, Sieg returned to his #39 for the RSS team’s debut at Milwaukee, coming home 13th.  By Kentucky that July, RSS entered a second “start-and-park” entry, #93, whose driving duties were split between Ryan’s older brother Shane and ASA star Mike Garvey, the latter doubling as crew chief.  While the #93 would go on to claim the next three consecutive LASTCAR Truck Series titles in 2010, 2011, and 2012, Ryan Sieg continued to impress in the primary #39.  His first Top 10 came in his sixth start at Gateway (9th), and two more Top 10s came in his first full season in 2010, when he ranked 15th in the standings.

Just as he had in Trucks, Sieg made his XFINITY debut for another team, finishing 21st at Phoenix in 2013 driving for owner-driver Jeremy Clements.  RSS followed that July at Indianapolis, where the #39 Chevrolet came home 24th.  The next year, Sieg and RSS went full-time in XFINITY, earning a season-best 3rd at Daytona in July that made the team eligible for a “Dash 4 Cash” event in New Hampshire, and ranked 16th in the final standings.  Last year, RSS stopped running Trucks to compete in XFINITY exclusively, yielding Sieg’s best season to date – another 3rd in the July Daytona race, two more Top Tens, and a career-best 9th in the season standings.  All of this was accomplished with limited funding, including several races where his black-and-orange #39 carried no logos at all.  The team continued to use the #93 as a “start-and-park” entry, a team which now leads the 2017 LASTCAR XFINITY standings with drivers Jeff Green, Jordan Anderson, and Stephen Leicht.

As Sieg and RSS march their way through another XFINITY season in 2017, attention turned to Cup.  Once again, driver and team have exercised the same plan, giving Sieg his start with an established program.  The opportunity arrived this past June at Dover, where Sieg was tabbed to drive in place of Corey LaJoie in the #83 JAS Expedited Trucking Toyota.  After drawing the first caution for a spin on Lap 18, Sieg clawed his way from last to the 26th spot at the finish, six laps down to race winner Jimmie Johnson.  The result was similar at Michigan later that month, a mid-race spin the only issue in a 33rd-place finish.

Heading into his next Cup attempt at Daytona, Sieg was coming off driver and team’s best finish in NASCAR’s top three divisions to date.  During the XFINITY event at Iowa, Sieg was one of the biggest surprises in the final running order, coming home a close 2nd to race winner William Byron.  With plans to run double-duty on the superspeedway, Sieg looked to turn heads in both races, and to avenge a last-lap spin that ended his battle for the lead during this year’s XFINITY race at Talladega.

As at Dover, Sieg would drive BK Racing’s #83 Toyota while teammate Corey LaJoie, who ran the #83 in this year’s Daytona 500, climbed aboard the #23.  Sieg’s car ran 33rd in Thursday’s opening practice, did not participate in Happy Hour, and on Friday qualified 39th on the grid with a lap of 183.438mph.  He also started 18th in the rain-delayed XFINITY event, but the RSS Racing Chevrolet ended up a disappointing 35th after a late-race accident.

Starting last in Saturday’s Cup race was two-time NASCAR Pinty’s Series Champion D.J. Kennington.  After two attempts with Gaunt Brothers Racing, which fielded his #96 Toyotas at Daytona and Talladega, Kennington was this week driving the #15 Toyota for Premium Motorsports, moving its regular driver Reed Sorenson to Premium’s team car, the #55 RoyalTeakCollection.com Toyota.  Premium announced Kennington’s one-race deal on June 15.  Kennington’s #15 Xchange of America / LordCo Toyota was originally classified 38th on the starting grid, but his lap of 184.464mph was disallowed, dropping the #15 to last, moving Sieg to 38th and original last-place starter Jeffrey Earnhardt to 39th.

When the race began, Kennington got a huge run down the back straightaway and vaulted past Jeffrey Earnhardt for last, then Reed Sorenson for 38th.  Earnhardt’s #33 Hulu Chevrolet then began to lose touch with the rest of the pack on Lap 2, and by the fifth lap was already 12.962 seconds behind the leader.  On Lap 8, Earnhardt was nearly 30 seconds behind the leader when the spotter reported a car slowing on the apron.  This car turned out to be Sieg’s #83, which was pulling down pit road, then turning left behind the wall.  Reports indicated the car was trailing smoke, and Sieg was shown walking away from the car.  The BK Racing crew had just started to load up the car, removing the rear spoiler, when Cole Whitt suddenly rolled past them in the garage, his #72 RTIC Coolers Chevrolet also out with engine issues.  Whitt’s fluid drew the first yellow on Lap 11, and just after the race restarted, D.J. Kennington’s engine expired in Turn 4, sending the car into a spin.  After just 15 laps, three drivers were already done for the night.

The fourth engine failure occurred to Jeffrey Earnhardt, who on Lap 60 drew the fourth caution of the night when the sluggish power plant on his #33 Hulu Chevrolet erupted in smoke.  He only took 37th in the finishing order after the return of Reed Sorenson, who went behind the wall for a vibration that turned out to be because of a loose water line.  Fourteen laps in arrears when he rejoined the race, Sorenson managed to salvage a 30th-place finish.  Rounding out the Bottom Five was Charlotte winner Austin Dillon, who crunched the nose of his #3 American Ethanol E15 Chevrolet in the first multi-car pileup on Lap 72.

Later that same night, Sieg’s teammate Corey LaJoie earned his best Cup Series finish, flirting with a Top 5 late before settling in 11th, shattering his previous record of 24th at Bristol and the Daytona 500.  LaJoie’s was one of several impressive runs, including a career-best run for Michael McDowell and the Leavine Family Racing team (4th) and the Beard Oil team of Brendan Gaughan, who wheeled a Richard Childress power plant in a battered car to a 7th-place finish.  Gaughan, who finished 11th for Beard in the Daytona 500, earned his best Cup finish since he was a Cup rookie for Roger Penske in 2004.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first last-place finish for the #83 in a Cup Series race at Daytona since July 4, 1975, when Johnny Rutherford’s #83 Smithville Farms 1975 Chevrolet fell out with transmission issues after 1 lap of the Firecracker 400.
*This marked the first last-place finish for the #83 in a Cup points race at any track since this past March 12 in Las Vegas, when Corey LaJoie’s turn in the JAS Expedited Trucking Toyota ended with a crash after 16 laps of the Kobalt 400.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #83-Ryan Sieg / 7 laps / engine
39) #72-Cole Whitt / 9 laps / engine
38) #15-D.J. Kennington / 14 laps / engine
37) #33-Jeffrey Earnhardt / 57 laps / engine
36) #3-Austin Dillon / 70 laps / crash

2017 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Circle Sport with The Motorsports Group (4)
2nd) BK Racing, Rick Ware Racing, Roush-Fenway Racing (2)
3rd) Chip Ganassi Racing, Furniture Row Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing, JTG-Daugherty Racing, Premium Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing (1)

2017 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (9)
2nd) Toyota (5)
3rd) Ford (3)

2017 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP

XFINITY: Crash puts brakes on strong run for Josh Williams and Gosselin team at Daytona

PHOTO: @MRNRadio

Josh Williams picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR XFINITY Series career in Friday and Saturday’s Coca-Cola Firecracker 250 at the Daytona International Speedway when his #92 Star Tron / Krankz Audio Chevrolet was involved in a multi-car crash after 50 of 104 laps.  The finish came in Williams’ sixth series start.

The 23-year-old driver from Port Charlotte, Florida shares much in common with Ryan Sieg, this week’s Cup Series feature.  Both drivers got their start in go-karts and, from their national series debuts, honed their skills with a family-owned team.  Williams’ stock car racing career developed from the ARCA Racing Series, which he joined at age 16.  He made his ARCA debut on February 27, 2010, finishing 20th of 34 drivers at his home track in Palm Beach.  His first Top 10 came the following year at Salem, where he ran 6th for longtime owner-driver Andy Belmont.  Williams returned for his first full-season bid in 2012, ranking 9th in points despite missing the race at Elko.

In 2013, Williams ran the entire ARCA schedule, splitting time between his own team, GMS Racing, and Roulo Brothers Racing.  The results were even more impressive – a runner-up finish to Corey LaJoie at Chicagoland, one of ten top-ten finishes in 21 starts, good enough for 5th in the standings.  Changing car numbers from #02 to #6 in 2014, Williams ran only a partial ARCA season, but never once finished worse than 14th in those 11 starts, earning him 13th in the standings.  That same year, he and his team made their Truck Series debuts at Martinsville, where they ran 34th of 36 after early brake issues.

Over the next two years, Williams became a strong championship threat in ARCA, finishing 3rd and 4th in the standings.  In the 39 combined races he made in 2015 and 2016, he earned 11 Top Fives and 26 Top Tens.  Finally, on April 9, 2016, came a breakthrough first victory at the venerable Nashville Fairgrounds, where his #6 Musselman’s Apple Sauce / Peg Leg Porker Chevrolet beat A.J. Fike by nearly 100 seconds.  A second victory came two months later at the Madison (Wisconsin) International Speedway, this time edging Kyle Weatherman’s dominant Mason Mitchell entry.

Part of what made Williams’ consistency so impressive was the fact that he not only raced for a small single-car team with very limited funding, but for many of those years ran old Chevrolet Impalas from the previous generation of ARCA racers, not upgrading to today’s “Gen-6” inspired composite bodies until recently.

2016 saw Williams make his XFINITY Series debut, running a pair of races in what were likely “start-and-park” efforts.  His series debut came at Michigan on June 11, where he drove Jimmy Means’ backup #79 DB Sales Co. Chevrolet to a 38th-place finish in a field of 40.  The next was a drive for King Autosport, a #92 BuckedUp Apparel Chevrolet fielded by Canadian owner-driver Mario Gosselin.  Again, the ride was short, leaving him 37th.

Coming into Daytona, Williams had built on his working relationship with Gosselin, making another three starts for King Autosport.  His first two were full-race efforts at Bristol and Pocono in Gosselin’s #90, yielding a career-best 22nd in the former and a 28th in the latter.  Following a 34th at Michigan in Gosselin’s #92, driver and team turned their efforts to the upcoming plate race, where this time both the #90 and #92 would be running the full race (Williams was announced as the driver after the preliminary entry list was published).  Williams’ #92 would carry new sponsorship from automotive additive company StarTron and Las Vegas-based headphone company Krankz Audio.

Friday’s race originally listed 43 drivers to attempt the 40-car field, but the list was soon pruned back to 40.  First two withdraw on Tuesday were owner-driver Morgan Shepherd’s #89 Visone RV Chevorlet as well as a new fourth JD Motorsports entry, #15, to be driven by Corey LaJoie.  By the time cars hit the track for practice, RSS Racing had also withdrawn their “start-and-park” #93, which did not have a driver selected.  Not having to worry about missing the cut, Williams ran 31st in Thursday’s opening practice, 8th of 16 in Happy Hour, and secured 32nd on the grid with a lap of 177.859mph.

Starting last on Friday was Jeff Green, who was back in B.J. McLeod’s #8 Toyota.  The last time Green drove this particular car, he finished 10th at Talladega, having led more laps in that race than in any of his XFINITY Series starts dating back to 2002.  He was joined at the rear by five other drivers, all sent to the back for making unapproved adjustments prior to the race: Justin Allgaier, William Byron, Matt Tifft, Jeb Burton, and Mike Harmon.  Just 11 laps were completed Friday before rain halted the action until the next morning.  At that moment, Green had already passed half the field up to the 20th spot.  Last then belonged to Joey Gase in Jimmy Means Racing’s #52 Trenton’s Legacy / Premier Millwright Chevrolet.

Other than another rain delay and a caution for lightning near the track, the rest of Stage 1 and first part of Stage 2 was run clean without any cautions for multi-car accidents.  That all changed on Lap 51.

That time by, both Williams and King Autosport teammate Brandon Brown in the #90 Horton Farms Chevrolet had paired up and were holding fast to positions just outside the Top 10.  Running the inside line, Williams was running directly behind Cole Custer, Erik Jones, and Daniel Suarez and had drafting help from behind from Stage 1 winner Blake Koch and the #90 of Brown.  Coming off Turn 4, contact between Custer, Erik Jones, and Suarez caused the entire inside line to check-up.  Suarez then cut left into Williams’ right-front as Brandon Brown rear-ended Koch, sending Williams, Suarez, and Koch toward the inside wall.  The result damaged both King Autosport cars – Williams’ driven into the inside wall while Brown’s nose was damaged from rear-ending Koch.

Williams, Brown, Koch, and Suarez were eliminated in the accident and ranked accordingly.  The remaining spot in the Bottom Five went to Harrison Rhodes, who lost the rear gear on his #01 Flex Tape Chevrolet late in the race.

For all the misfortunes at the tail end of the field, Daytona again yielded some good underdog stories.  Dakoda Armstrong picked up his second-straight top-five finish with a career-best 3rd in the #28 WinField United Toyota.  Jeb Burton, a late announcement to drive alongside Armstrong for JGL Racing, picked up his own first Top Five by running 4th in the #24 Estes Express Lines Toyota.  Joey Gase gave Jimmy Means Racing its second-straight Top 10 at Daytona, challenging for a Top 5 late before settling for 10th.

The best B.J. McLeod car this time was veteran David Starr, who in his 112th XFINITY Series start earned his first-ever Top 5 with a 5th in an unsponsored #99 Chevrolet.  It was Starr’s first Top 5 in any of NASCAR’s top three series since October 19, 2013, when he followed Johnny Sauter to the checkered in a Truck Series race at Talladega.  McLeod himself finished 11th in his #78 Chevrolet, besting his previous career mark of 17th last week at Iowa, while Jeff Green held on for a respectable 20th.

LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first last-place finish in an XFINITY Series race for the #92 since the July 4, 2015 running of this race, when Dexter Bean’s run in the Gamache Truck Center / Cote Chevrolet for King Autosport ended with a vibration after 6 laps.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
40) #92-Josh Williams / 50 laps / crash
39) #18-Daniel Suarez / 50 laps / crash / led 1 lap
38) #11-Blake Koch / 50 laps / crash / led 28 laps / won stage 1
37) #90-Brandon Brown / 50 laps / crash
36) #01-Harrison Rhodes / 94 laps / rear gear

2017 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) RSS Racing (10)
2nd) B.J. McLeod Motorsports, Kaulig Racing, King Autosport, Shepherd Racing Ventures, SS Green Light Racing (1)

2017 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (15)

2017 LASTCAR XFINITY SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP