SEASON IN REVIEW
Owensboro, Kentucky driver Jeff Green picked up his fourth LASTCAR Nationwide Series Championship in 2013, scoring fifteen last-place finishes in thirty-two starts during a thirty-three race season. In doing so, Green not only broke his own single-season last-place record of twelve set in 2012 and joined Jeff Fuller as the only drivers with three consecutive LASTCAR Nationwide Series titles, but also became the first four-time LASTCAR Nationwide Series Champion.
Green remained in the #10 “start-and-park” entry for TriStar Motorsports, a team whose lineup stayed largely the same from 2012. For much of the year, Green’s efforts helped fund his three teammates: Mike Bliss in the #19, the same number he ran for much of 2013 in TriStar’s part-owned Cup car, the #44 changed hands between Hal Martin, Cole Whitt, and Chad Hackenbracht, and Eric McClure in the #14. Just as in 2012, illness sidelined McClure for several races, and again, Green drove in relief for those six starts with a season-best 16th at Bristol on August 23. Despite this, Green still managed to finish last in almost half of the season’s thirty-three races, setting a new NASCAR record.
Green started 2013 by picking up right where he left off, scoring his second-straight last-place finish in the season opener at Daytona on February 23 when a vibration stopped his #10 TriStar Motorsports Toyota after 4 laps. Five races later, he then scored three in a row, all due to vibrations: at Texas on April 12 after 3 laps, at Richmond on April 26 after 4 laps, and at Talladega on May after 3 laps. Four races later on June 9, he finished last at Iowa, having scored four last-place finishes at the track with four different TriStar “start-and-park” teams: #36, #44, #91, and #10.
Over the next eight races through the series’ return to Iowa on August 3, Green finished last in five of them, increasing his season total to ten with thirteen races still to be run. It began with back-to-back runs at Road America on June 22, where brake failure stopped him after 2 laps, then at Kentucky on June 28, where a vibration was the reason for his exit after 3 laps. Two races later came another vibration at Loudon on July 13, then back-to-back vibrations at Indianapolis on July 27 after 4 laps an at Iowa on August 3 after 3 laps. This streak also increased his career total of Nationwide Series last-place finishes to 48, doubling the career total of second-place Jeff Fuller.
Green didn’t finish last again for six races, during which time he made four of his starts in relief of Eric McClure. When he climbed back in the #10 at Chicago on September 14, he not only finished last for the eleventh time in 2013, but in doing so clinched his third consecutive LASTCAR title with seven races left to be run. Down the stretch, Green trailed four of those seven races, all due to vibrations. The first two came at Kentucky on September 21 after 3 laps, then two races later at Kansas on October 5 after 4 laps. The Kansas finish was Green’s 13th of 2013, breaking his single-season last-place record. He added two more at Charlotte on October 11 after 2 laps and at Phoenix on November 9 after 4 laps.
Green’s fifteen last-place finishes not only set a single-season Nationwide Series record, but a single-season record for any driver who has competed across all three series. The previous record of thirteen last-place finishes was set by Jeff Fuller in 2004. Fuller scored eleven last-place runs in Nationwide and another two in Cup.
Overall, TriStar Motorsports scored a total of eighteen last-place finishes in the 2013 Nationwide Series season, more than half of the thirty-three races run. This set a new team record, beating the team’s own mark of sixteen in 2012. The additional three finishes to Green’s came when Eric McClure’s #14 broke an oil pump at Las Vegas on March 9 and when Michael McDowell drove the #10 at Texas on November 2 and TriStar’s #91 at Homestead on November 16 while teammate. McDowell, like Chase Miller earlier in the season, drove Green’s “start-and-park” entries while Green relieved McClure.
Because of Green’s dominance, McDowell was one of only three other drivers to score more than one last-place finish in 2013. McDowell’s third finish came at Bristol on March 16, when he drove a “start-and-park” entry for SR2 Motorsports, #27, that fell out with handling problems after 2 laps. Blake Koch, who nearly claimed the 2012 LASTCAR Truck Series title, finished last three times in SR2's #00 Toyota: at Dover on June 1, when his brakes let go after 4 laps, at the inaugural event at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on August 17 when a vibration stopped him after 2 laps, and at Atlanta on August 31 when the ignition failed after 5 laps. Another two last-place runs went to Joey Gase, whose Means Racing #52 Toyotas lost engines after 4 laps at Fontana on March 23 and after the opening lap at Chicago on July 21.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Noticeably absent from LASTCAR competition in 2013 was The Motorsports Group, which scaled back from four teams to three. Both TMG’s “start-and-park” teams finished last just once all season: the #42 at Bristol on August 23 when Josh Wise had a vibration after 4 laps and the #46 at Richmond on September 6 when J.J. Yeley lost an engine after 4 laps. The team’s primary #40 endured a challenging season from start to finish, then ended up parking in the final two rounds at Phoenix and Homestead with T.J. Bell behind the wheel, finishing 37th and 38th, respectively. Despite this, TMG’s three teams amassed a combined fifty bottom-five finishes in 2013, including nineteen next-to-last-place finishes.
The year 2013 saw the institution of 40-car fields for all Nationwide Series races. At Michigan on June 15, just thirty-nine cars started the race, making it the shortest Nationwide Series field since Watkins Glen on July 8, 2001, when that same number started the GNC Live Well 200. Finishing last at the Michigan race was Dexter Stacey, whose #92 Maddie’s Place Ford crashed after 6 laps. Curiously, it was Stacey who finished last in the final 43-car field at Homestead in 2012 when he lost the engine on his #39 Maddie’s Place Ford on the opening lap.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Jeff Green (15)
2nd) Blake Koch, Michael McDowell (3)
3rd) Joey Gase (2)
4th) Tanner Berryhill, Danny Efland, Johanna Long, Eric McClure, Robert Richardson, Jr., Morgan Shepherd, Dexter Stacey, Mike Wallace, Josh Wise, J.J. Yeley (1)
