SEASON IN REVIEW
Riverside, California driver Josh Wise picked up his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 2016, scoring four last-place finishes in twenty-eight starts during a thirty-six race season. Wise prevailed in the first tiebreaker since 2012 and the most competitive since 2001, besting Reed Sorenson and Matt DiBendetto on Bottom Fives.
Wise entered his eighth season in Cup competition, but only his sixth in which he qualified for any races. The journeyman driver made his first Cup attempt at Martinsville in October 2009, driving the #73 Dodge owned by Barry Haefele, but was the only driver who failed to qualify. Two more attempts in 2010 – one each for Gunselman Motorsports and R3 Motorsports – were also unsuccessful. It wasn’t until the 2011 Chase opener at Chicagoland on September 19 that Wise finally took a green flag in NASCAR’s top division, finishing 42nd in Gunselman’s #37 Bradley University Ford.
Hard work and persistence were nothing new for Wise. He’d moved from ARCA to NASCAR in 2007, when he ran a partial Truck Series schedule for Darrell Waltrip and made his Busch debut for Fitz-Bradshaw Racing. His first top-five finish came with the latter, a 5th-place finish at Indianapolis Raceway Park on July 26, 2008. Wise rounded out the season with Michael Waltrip Racing, finishing 11th at Texas and 12th in the finale at Homestead. But in 2009, Wise didn’t have a Truck Series ride, and made just three races in Nationwide. He returned to Nationwide in 2010, but finished no better than 19th with single-car team Specialty Racing.
Midway through 2010, Wise picked up his first big break. JR Motorsports, owned by Dale Earnhardt, Jr., was preening IndyCar star Danica Patrick for her move to NASCAR. To work around Patrick’s open-wheel obligations, Wise was among the drivers who shared Patrick’s #7 Chevrolet for the rest of the season. Wise finished 16th his first time out at Nashville, then finished 8th and 7th in the two Gateway races. The latter came while driving JRM’s #88 Chevrolet which had been piloted by Earnhardt, among others. Another partial Nationwide season for JRM in 2011, fleshed out by other drives for Go Green Racing and Key Motorsports, coincided with his Cup Series debut.
Patrick’s move to Cup in 2012 ended Wise’s relationship with JRM, and that year the Californian made a bid for Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year. Though placed on Front Row Motorsports’ third team, the #26 Ford, his ride was a “start-and-park” effort for nearly the entire year, handing the title to Stephen Leicht. He also remained with Key Motorsports, now renamed The Motorsports Group (TMG), and after a 14th-place finish in the Daytona opener parked for the rest of the year. With just five combined last-place finishes across both Cup and Nationwide, however, he lost both LASTCAR titles to defending winners Michael McDowell and Jeff Green, respectively.
Though Wise remained a “start-and-park” driver for TMG through 2014, both driver and team developed different plans in Cup.
Wise’s Cup ride at Front Row ran more full races in 2013, including a season-best 19th at Talladega, and in 2014 he replaced McDowell at Phil Parsons Racing. The Parsons team, once a “start-and-park” effort as well, made a full-season, full-race effort with Wise that year. Their best effort came in the Budweiser Duels at Daytona, where Wise’s surprising 5th-place finish put Parsons’ #98 Ford 11th on the grid for the Daytona 500. A strong Internet fan effort followed through the Reddit.com community and its Dogecoin Digital Currency. The Dogecoin effort gave Wise sponsorship in four races, including the All-Star Race, where the same group voted him into the main event. But when Parsons sold his team to Jay Robinson and Premium Motorsports in 2015, the two parted ways following a last-place finish at Kentucky.
TMG, meanwhile, eyed moving their XFINITY effort to Cup in 2015. After 13 seasons in the second-tier division, TMG arrived at Daytona in 2015 with Ron Hornaday, Jr. behind the wheel of their new #30 Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff Chevrolet. Hornaday, looking to make his first Daytona 500 since 2001, missed the cut, but a qualifying inspection miscue at Atlanta put TMG into its first Cup race the following week. The team made just one more start in 2015, ironically with all-time LASTCAR leader Jeff Green. Green started 33rd in the spring race at Richmond and came home 40th, 14 laps down, but under power. After struggling into the fall, TMG looked ahead to 2016, and hired Wise to drive.
NASCAR’s new Charter System, the consequence of a new bargaining agreement reached over the offseason, meant that 36 teams had a guaranteed starting spot in each race run that year. With field sizes also reduced from 43 to 40 starters, this meant the final four spots would go to so-called “Open” teams. Without a Charter, this meant Wise and TMG would have to fight to make every race in 2016. But, with hardly any Open teams attempting the season, Wise only missed five races all year.
Atlanta on February 28, Wise’s first race of 2016, was also his first last-place finish of the year. Just 39 cars arrived to attempt the field, the fewest starters for a race on the Atlanta oval since 1983. Wise, along with the other 38, also managed to finish under power, even as a wreck on the final lap involved a number of drivers. The result was Wise’s #30 Key Realty Group Chevrolet completing all but 18 laps, the eighth-most by a last-place finisher in Cup Series history.
Wise’s next last-place run came five rounds later at Texas on April 9. That weekend, he became the first driver to sweep both the Cup and Nationwide last-place finishes at the same track since 2012, when Wise himself did so at Bristol. This time, the #30 CrawfestNB.com / Radisson Fort Worth Chevrolet was involved in a mid-race wreck that ended his night after 178 laps. He’d have to wait another twelve races for the third last-place run of his season, where another crash stopped his #30 after 94 laps at Loudon on July 17.
The 2016 season proved to be one of the most competitive LASTCAR seasons in several years. Heading into the November 6 race at Texas, 15 races after Loudon, Reed Sorenson had the 2016 LASTCAR lead with four last-place finishes an twelve Bottom Fives. Sorenson, who in 2012 was edged for the title by McDowell in the final race, now had to contend with second-year driver Matt DiBenedetto. DiBenedetto, who locked-up the LASTCAR XFINITY Series title at Dover the month earlier, also had four Cup last-place runs, but only seven Bottom Fives. Wise’s three last-place finishes gave him sole possession of 3rd. Though he had more Bottom Fives (16) than both Sorenson and DiBenedetto, it appeared his title hopes were done. After Texas, rookie Gray Gaulding would drive in place of Wise for the final two rounds at Phoenix and Homestead. Wise needed to finish last at Texas just to stay alive.
Like Atlanta, the fall race at Texas was another green-flag, low attrition affair. In the final laps, last belonged to Ryan Ellis, whose #93 Toyota appeared to be out of the race with mechanical issues, only to return 31 laps down. A late-race accident involving Austin Dillon and Casey Mears dropped Mears down to 38th. He only needed to pass Wise, 10 laps down in 39th, and Ellis to take last. But three laps before Mears could, Wise pulled off the track with electrical issues, and was done for the night. If the race went the rest of the way, Wise would take last from Ellis with time to spare, securing it on Lap 290 of the 334-lap event.
But rain was on its way, and as the race neared the 300-lap mark, an increasing mist threatened to cut the race short. Ellis remained on track, closing the distance between he and Wise. Then the caution came out for rain – on Lap 291. NASCAR called the race two laps later. By the closest of margins, Wise had taken last from Ellis and held off Mears. Wise now held the lead on Bottom Fives over Sorenson and DiBenedetto – 17-12-7. Neither Sorenson nor DiBenedetto finished last the following week at Phoenix, setting up a thrilling finale at Homestead. The only way either driver could defeat Wise was by finishing 40th in the season finale.
Homestead also ran with low attrition, but this time last place only changed hands between rookie Dylan Lupton and Richard Petty Motorsports driver Aric Almirola. Almirola took the spot when he pulled into the garage with apparent damage to the rear suspension. Like Ellis at Texas, he returned to the track in last. He was 54 laps down with 34 laps to go, and Sorenson and DiBenedetto were still on track, only a handful of circuits behind. Thus, at the moment Almriola’s #43 Smithfield Ford returned to the track, Wise had secured his first LASTCAR title on a tiebreaker. Never since 2001 had so many drivers been in contention in the final race.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Third in the LASTCAR standings, Matt DiBenedetto scored his first last-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 on February 21, following an early crash with rookie Chris Buescher. The aforementioned Charter system, instituted for the first time that day, made the 500 the shortest Cup field since the final race at North Wilkesboro in September 1996.
2016 also saw the sport’s second-longest streak without a last-place finish come to an end. At Watkins Glen on August 7, Jimmie Johnson was eliminated when his #48 Lowe’s / Jimmie Johnson Foundation Chevrolet was collected in a multi-car accident off Turn 9. The finish, secured on Lap 69 when Michael Annett passed him for 39th, was Johnson’s first in his 529th Cup start. It was also the first last-place run for the #48 in a Cup race since James Hylton’s exit at Rockingham on February 28, 1993. Still, Johnson managed to claim his record-tying seventh NASCAR Cup Series title, and became the first driver since Matt Kenseth in 2003 to finish last in a championship season.
Also ending his streak that year was Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., whose first last-place run in 236 starts came at Kentucky on July 9. Stenhouse’s #17 Fifth Third Bank Ford crashed just 9 laps into the Quaker State 400. By season’s end, he would have another, the result of a second early crash at Martinsville on October 30.
Kevin Harvick again finished the season without a single last-place finish in a now-record 574 Cup starts. He did, however, finish last in the season-opening exhibition race, the Sprint Unlimited, his first last-place run of any kind since the 2001 All-Star Race at Charlotte. He also came the closest yet to ending his streak in the July 2 race at Daytona, where he and six other drivers completed just 89 laps. Harvick was ranked second-lowest of the group in 39th, one spot ahead of Chris Buescher.
Speaking of streaks, two of the longest since a driver’s first last-place finish also ended in 2016. The first was Jamie McMurray, whose engine failure at Dover on October 2 ended a streak of 312 races since the Food City 500 at Bristol on March 16, 2008. The next week at Charlotte on October 9, Casey Mears was involved in a multi-car wreck after 61 laps, ending a streak of 361 races since his own inaugural during the Pocono 500 at Pocono on June 11, 2006.
Three times in 2016, every car that started also finished the race: Atlanta on February 28 (Josh Wise finished last), Richmond on April 24 (Reed Sorenson), and Chicagoland on September 27 (Joey Gase).
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Matt DiBenedetto [7 B5s], Reed Sorenson [13 B5s], Josh Wise [17 B5s] (4)
2nd) Aric Almirola (3)
3rd) Clint Bowyer, Paul Menard, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Martin Truex, Jr. (2)
4th) Justin Allgaier, Michael Annett, Trevor Bayne, Kyle Busch, Chris Buescher, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Joey Gase, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Larson, Jamie McMurray, Casey Mears, Ryan Newman, Cole Whitt (1)
