PHOTO: Brock Beard
SEASON IN REVIEW
Los Gatos, California driver A.J. Allmendinger picked up his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 2025, scoring four last-place finishes in thirty-six races during a thirty-six race season.
Allmendinger was competing in his eighteenth season in the Cup Series, a journey that began in late 2006 when he made the jump from open-wheel competition in the Champ Car World Series to NASCAR. Paired with Toyota, the sport’s newest manufacturer, and an equally brand-new Red Bull team, Allmendinger struggled to both qualify and finish races through 2008. He then found his footing and the newly reincorporated Richard Petty Motorsports, earning his first career Top Five in his first Daytona 500 start. In 2012, he stepped in for Kurt Busch at Penske Racing, made a brief stay at Phoenix Racing, then midway through 2013 earned another long-time ride with JTG-Daugherty Racing. The next year at Watkins Glen, Allmendinger earned the team its first-ever Cup Series victory, but the next four seasons proved a fruitless struggle.
But then came a surprising turnaround with Matthew Kaulig, who in 2019 brought on Allmendinger to go “trophy hunting” in the XFINITY Series. The veteran found near-instant success, first by beginning a dominating streak of victories at the Charlotte “Roval.” And when Kaulig eyed a jump to the Cup Series, Allmendinger followed, earning his second career win on another infield road course at Indianapolis. But while he’s been a consistent contender in Kaulig’s XFINITY cars, success in Cup hasn’t come as easy – particularly as it coincided with the introduction of NASCAR’s new NextGen car in 2022. In that time, Allmendinger has switched between part-time and full-time efforts. His latest full-time season in 2023 saw him win on the Charlotte “Roval” again, this time in a Cup car for his third series victory.
For 2025, Allmendinger was again full-time as three other drivers filled Kaulig’s roster in XFINITY. This would prove to be a season of transition for Kaulig, whose Cup and XFINITY teams both dealt with mechanical issues and bad luck, all while positioning themselves to take over Dodge’s return to the Truck Series for 2026. The result was another difficult year for Allmendinger in particular. His LASTCAR title bid began at Daytona on February 16th, where his #16 Celsius Chevrolet was running near the lead pack when the engine let go, sending him behind the wall. The next last-place run came eleven races later in Kansas on May 11th, again due to a blown engine – this time just six laps into the race in his #16 Action Industries Chevrolet. Allmendinger was particularly vocal over the radio about the team’s engines, which were provided by ECR. The third last-place run was at Dover on July 20th, where a flat tire led to a loss of right-rear brakes, causing his brake pedal to go to the floor. At the time, both Carson Hocevar and Cody Ware were in the garage, but both returned to the track, dropping Allmendinger’s #16 Campers Inn RV Chevrolet to last place.
Despite three last-place finishes through the first 21 races of the season, Allmendinger didn’t hold the LASTCAR lead for long. The following month at Daytona on August 23rd, Riley Herbst earned his own third last-place finish of 2025 in his #35 Monster Energy Toyota, a new third team for 23XI Racing, and led Allmendinger on a bottom-five tiebreaker of 9-5. The month after on September 13th at Bristol, Playoff contender Josh Berry swept all three last-place finishes of the “Round of 16,” leapfrogging him to the lead on a bottom-ten tiebreaker over Herbst of 13-10. Then on October 5th, Herbst was disqualified from 30th for failing post-race weights, scoring a series-leading fourth last-place finish with four races to go. The next three races saw other Playoff contenders finish last in Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, and Chase Briscoe.
Heading into the championship finale at Phoenix, Herbst remained the leader, but would lose the title if either Allmendinger or Berry finished last while Herbst did not finish in the Bottom Five. The weekend began with problems for both Herbst and Allmendinger, who each had incidents in practice. While Herbst’s crew was able to rebuild the right-side of his #35, Allmendinger’s car clobbered the Turn 3 wall after a cut tire, forcing the team to roll out a backup car. This car swap prevented Allmendinger from qualifying on time, putting him 38th and last on the grid. Incredibly, on Lap 149, Allmendinger cut another tire in the same spot at Turn 3, resulting in a near-identical crash that ended his afternoon. As at Dover, two other cars were in the garage for repairs – Casey Mears and Bubba Wallace. And, like Dover, both returned, meaning Allmendinger took over last place. The championship was clinched at the checkered flag when Herbst finished 23rd, well outside the Bottom Five, allowing Allmendinger to win a bottom-five tiebreaker of 8-7. If Herbst had finished in the Bottom Five, Allmendinger would have instead lost a bottom-ten tiebreaker of 14-10.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Herbst and Connor Zilisch were the only two drivers to score their first Cup Series last-place finishes in 2025, and both occurred on consecutive weekends. One week before Herbst’s crash after 98 laps at Phoenix on March 9th gave the #35 its first last-place finish in the series since 2015, Zilisch made his much-anticipated series debut at the Circuit of the Americas. Zilisch qualified 14th in the #87 Red Bull Chevrolet, only to be collected in a wreck with teammate Daniel Suarez near the middle stages. Zilisch would also earn a controversial and near tragic second last-place run at Watkins Glen on August 10th. That weekend, Zilisch was pulling double-duty with his full-time effort in the XFINITY Series, which he won on Saturday. But while celebrating in victory lane, he slipped on the car’s frame and fell, breaking his left shoulder. Zilisch had already qualified his #87 for Sunday’s race, but the team elected to not bring on a replacement driver, so the car was withdrawn. While the official statistics didn’t classify Zilisch’s car in the field, previous examples of cars qualified but not starting were, so I credited Zilisch with the last-place finish.
Josh Berry’s three consecutive last-place finishes that doomed his Playoff bid from August 31st through September 13th marked the first time the Wood Brothers Racing team ever finished last in two or more consecutive Cup Series points-paying races. His third in a row marked the first three-peat in the Cup Series since 2020, earned by Ryan Preece in July. As with Preece, Berry fell just short of becoming the first Cup driver to score four last-place finishes in a row, though a spin on the backstretch at Loudon briefly put him in last place that day. Berry then mounted an impressive charge, nearly taking the win before settling on a runner-up finish.
The March 30th race at Martinsville had such low attrition that, with 33 laps to go, it looked like it was going to come down to Casey Mears in the #66 goHitchGo Ford and Burt Myers in the #50 Team AmeriVet Chevrolet, who were trading the last spot, each of them ten laps down. This changed when Austin Cindric’s persistent battery issue on the #2 Menards / Jack Links Ford led to the team running out of batteries in the closing laps, forcing them to park in the garage. This occurred with just enough time for Cindric to take last from both drivers. But Cindric, too, was denied the last-place run when Erik Jones’ #43 Dollar Tree Toyota was disqualified from 24th for failing post-race weights. Along with Herbst’s disqualification on the “Roval” – which also spared Cindric from a last-place finish - there was a double-disqualification at Talladega on April 27th. There, both runner-up Ryan Preece in the #60 Kroger / Celsius Ford and the #22 Shell / Pennzoil Ford of 5th-place finishing Joey Logano were DQ’d for different infractions relating to their rear spoilers. Logano, the lower classified of the two, took last place from a wrecked Ryan Blaney.
On April 6th at Darlington, J.J. Yeley blew a right-front tire on his #44 Wawa Chevrolet and went behind the wall for repairs, but the team couldn’t find a replacement brake line, so they were forced to call it a day. Nearby, Kyle Larson’s crew was hard at work piecing together the #5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, which Larson wrecked in a single-car incident on the backstretch on Lap 4. In the closing stages, Larson returned to the track a full 161 laps down and cleared Yeley, only to crash a second time, forcing the race to end with an overtime finish.
NASCAR’s first last-place finisher of a points-paying race held outside the United States since 1958 was Kyle Busch, who on the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course in Mexico City on June 15th skated out-of-control on a damp track into other slowing cars, seriously damaging his #8 Lucas Oil Chevrolet.
At Iowa on August 3rd, Joey Gase’s #66 King of the Hill Ford, marking the return of the animated series “King of the Hill,” finished ten laps down in last place as all 37 starters finished the race – the only time this happened in 2025.
William Byron’s clutch issues on the opening lap of the Chicago Street Course race on July 6th handed him just the second last-place finish of his career and his first since the 2020 Daytona 500.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) A.J. Allmendinger [8 B5s], Riley Herbst [7 B5s] (4)
2nd) Josh Berry (3)
3rd) Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Cody Ware, Connor Zilisch (2)
4th) Josh Bilicki, Chase Briscoe, Alex Bowman, Kyle Busch, William Byron, Ross Chastain, Joey Gase, Noah Gragson, Denny Hamlin, Carson Hocevar, Jimmie Johnson, Erik Jones, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Daniel Suarez, J.J. Yeley (1)
