SCREENSHOT: FS1
SEASON IN REVIEW
Port Tobacco, Maryland driver Timmy Hill picked up his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 2020, scoring five last-place finishes in thirty-six races during a thirty-six race season. Hill became the first driver since Landon Cassill in 2015 to claim the LASTCAR title after starting every scheduled Cup race that season.
The 2020 season marked Hill’s ninth season in the Cup Series and the first time he’d start every scheduled race. In that time, he’d gained valuable experience driving for multiple small teams, including Rick Ware Racing, Go FAS Racing, Circle Sport, Team XTREME Racing, Premium Motorsports, Phil Parsons Racing, and now Carl Long’s team Motorsports Business Management. It was at MBM that Hill ran nearly the full XFINITY schedule on top of his growing Cup calendar, and 2020 would be Hill’s second as team owner of Hill Motorsports, a Truck Series team with his brother Tyler.
This season began with Hill gaining perhaps the most media attention he’d received yet. He not only raced his way into his first Daytona 500 field, but overcame a front valence penalty in the weekend’s XFINITY Series race to finish a career-best 3rd – his first top-five finish in the series. Unfortunately, it was the following week at Las Vegas on February 23rd that saw Hill score his first Cup Series last-place finish of the year – and 10th of his entire Cup career. That day, his #66 Manscaped / LasVegas.net Toyota fell out after 175 laps with rear end trouble. Another last-place finish came two races later at Phoenix on March 8th, this time engine trouble on his #66 Pit Boss Grills Toyota after 51 laps.
It was another seven races before Hill’s next last-place finish, but also nearly three months. The suspension of the season due to the COVID-19 pandemic occurred just days after the Phoenix race, halting the series action until May 17th at Darlington. Hill scored his third last-place finish at Martinsville on June 10th, this time after a fuel pump failed, ending a run at 105 laps after his #66 CrashClaimsR.us Toyota was running inside the Top 20. Hill didn’t finish last again for seventeen races until Richmond on September 12, where a rear hub left his #66 CrashClaimsR.us Toyota the only car out of the race. Hill had also finished last in the XFINITY race run at the same track earlier that day, making him the first driver to finish last in two series on the same day. The Richmond finish was just the second instance of a “left-rear hub” causing a last-place finish – the first in Cup history occurred June 22 at Talladega with Matt Kenseth.
The fifth and final last-place finish came on the Charlotte “Roval,” where Hill was again having a strong run. Staying out on scuffed tires at the end of Stage 1, Hill held on to finish 5th, but the engine blew in the next stage, dropping him out of the race.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
The closest challenger to Hill in 2020 was Ryan Preece, who scored the first four last-place finishes of his Cup Series career driving JTG-Daugherty’s #37 Chevrolet. Preece’s first last-place finish came after he drew the pole for the mid-week race at Darlington on May 20, where he fell out with engine trouble. But an accident at the entrance to pit road at Indianapolis on July 5 began a near-record streak. He finished last again the next week at Kentucky after the transmission locked up after 159 laps, then crashes again at Texas on July 19. A bid to tie Dave Blaney’s four consecutive last-place finishes in 2009 came up just short when Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Preece’s teammate at JTG-Daugherty Racing, fell out instead after an electrical fire the following week in Kansas. Preece’s bad luck hit him there, too, as he suffered a hard crash on the backstretch. The result was a streak of four last-place finishes in a row for JTG-Daugherty Racing, joining PRISM Motorsports as the only team to do so. Kyle Busch’s last-place run at Loudon on August 2 ended that streak. Preece held the 2020 LASTCAR Cup Series lead from the end of the streak on July 19 through Richmond on September 12, where Hill scored his fourth and resumed the lead in Bottom Fives.
The season also saw Brad Keselowski finally score his first last-place finish in his 399th series start. While battling for the lead at Michigan on August 9, Keselowski broke loose and collected teammate Ryan Blaney, knocking both cars out of the race. Keselowski took the finish since he was trying to complete the pass at the time. This ended the last streak of triple-digit Cup starts without a last-place finish – the next-longest active streak among active drivers as of that race was just 25 starts.
Aside from Preece and Keselowski, the other first-time last-place finishers of the season were William Byron, who crashed out after 58 laps of the Daytona 500 on February 17; Christopher Bell, who lost an engine after 80 laps at Fontana on March 1; James Davison after engine trouble after 162 laps of the Southern 500 on September 6; and Chad Finchum as Timmy Hill’s part-time teammate in the #49 after overheating issues at Las Vegas on September 27.
On May 24, Jimmie Johnson was flagged second in the Coca-Cola 600, set to be a high point of his final season as a full-time Cup driver. But his car failed post-race Optical Scanning Station (OSS) inspection, making him the only Cup driver in 2020 to be classified last by disqualification.
On June 28 at Pocono, Michael McDowell finally took sole possession of the most last-place finishes in Cup Series history. In what turned out to be his only last-place finish of the entire 2020 season, McDowell’s 34th last-place finish came after his #34 Dockside Logistics Ford crashed after 15 laps of the Pocono 350.
On August 16 in the inaugural Daytona Infield Road Course race, Brendan Gaughan scored his first last-place finish in Cup since March 25, 2012. Gaughan’s transmission failed near the end of the race, and he only took over last place from Stanton Barrett in the final two laps.
On August 23, Rick Ware Racing became the first team to finish last in the Indianapolis 500 and a Cup Series race on the same day. James Davison’s wheel issue in the early laps of the delayed Indy 500 came just before Joey Gase was collected in an early crash after four laps at Dover. Both drivers were running car #51. Davison himself finished last for the first time in his own Cup career in the Southern 500, making him the first driver to finish last in both the Indy 500 and the Southern 500 in the same year. That finish on September 6 also happened to be the third in a row for Rick Ware Racing’s Cup teams, one each for three of their cars.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Timmy Hill (5)
2nd) Ryan Preece (4)
3rd) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., J.J. Yeley (3)
4th) Christopher Bell, Joey Gase, Quin Houff, Matt Kenseth, Garrett Smithley (2)
5th) Ryan Blaney, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, William Byron, James Davison, Chad Finchum, Brendan Gaughan, Jimmie Johnson, Brad Keselowski, Michael McDowell, B.J. McLeod (1)
