SEASON IN REVIEW
Owensboro, Kentucky driver Jeff Green picked up his fifth LASTCAR XFINITY Series Championship in 2015, scoring twenty-three last-place finishes in twenty-eight starts during a thirty-three race season. In doing so, Green not only shattered his own NASCAR single-season last-place record of fifteen set in 2013, but became the first NASCAR driver to finish last in eight consecutive races, breaking his four-race record in 2011, and he locked-up the championship with eleven races remaining. Green also tied the late J.D. McDuffie for the most LASTCAR titles in NASCAR history with five apiece.
Following a 2014 season where he shared “start-and-park” duties with teammate Blake Koch, who edged him for the LASTCAR title, Green once again became the driver of TriStar Motorsports’ #10 Toyota, which changed its scheme from black to white. Koch, meanwhile, acquired sponsorship from Leaf Filter Gutter Protection and debuted TriStar’s #8 Toyota, which ran full races all season. Curtis Key’s team The Motorsports Group, long a competitor to TriStar for LASTCAR supremacy, moved to Cup at the start of 2015, and only a few “start-and-park” teams remained to challenge Green.
Green began 2015 by conceding his qualified Daytona entry to Scott Lagasse, Jr. and he was not entered the next week at Atlanta, but once he made his first start of the year at Las Vegas on March 7, then again at Phoenix on March 14, both times finishing last after 3 laps due to a vibration, Green took the LASTCAR lead and never relinquished it, setting off on his record-setting season.
Green’s third finish came two races later at Richmond, where this time a rear gear was cited as the reason for leaving 2 laps into the April 24 race. It was to be his final last-place run of the year in the #10. After the next round at Talladega, where Charles Lewandoski parked the #10, teammate Mike Bliss lost his ride with TriStar, and Green’s entry was renumbered as Bliss’ #19. Green’s first two last-place finishes in the #19 came in consecutive races - numbers four and five on the season - when a vibration stopped him after 2 laps at Charlotte on May 23 and after 3 laps at Dover on May 30. A sixth finish came two races later at Chicagoland, where another vibration ended his day 2 laps into the June 21 race. Fourteen races into the season, and Green had finished last in nearly half the races – but this was only the beginning.
In August 2011, Green became the first driver in any of NASCAR’s top three divisions to finish last in four consecutive points races. In 2015, starting at Kentucky on July 10 where another vibration stopped him at 3 laps, he matched this record by coming home 40th in the next three rounds: Loudon on July 18, Indianapolis on July 25, and Iowa on August 1. Then, in the next race at Watkins Glen on August 8, TV cameras caught Green pulling to pit road as the leaders raced side-by-side for the top spot behind him entering Turn 11 of the road course – a record 5th last-place run in a row. Green continued the streak for three more incredible weeks – a vibration at Mid-Ohio on August 15, another at Bristol on August 21, and a transmission failure at Road America on August 29. It wasn’t until the following race at Darlington on September 5 that the streak came to an end with Ryan Ellis’ #17 “Navy Seals vs. Zombies” Ford for Rick Ware Racing taking the spot. Green finished two spots back in 38th, edged also by Motorsports Business Management’s #40 Dodge with Carl Long aboard. MBM’s two teams racked-up a combined thirty-four bottom-five finishes in 2015, but just one last-place finish by Long at Iowa on May 17, keeping them out of LASTCAR contention.
While the streak was over at eight-straight races, Green had already won the war: he clinched the title with eleven races to go when he parked at Bristol on August 21.
Green wasn’t done. In fact, after Ellis edged him at Darlington, Green acquired sponsorship from Premier Barter Exchange for the rest of the season. The #19 Toyota with its new blue numbers debuted the very next week at Richmond on September 11, and Green drove it to his sixteenth finish after a vibration on Lap 2. He finished last once again the next week at Chicagoland on September 19.
Following teammate Koch’s last-place run after an early crash at Kentucky, Green finished last in the final six races of the season all the way through Homestead, thus creating the longest and second-longest last-place streaks in NASCAR history in the same season. The final surge began at Dover on October 3, continued to Charlotte on October 9, Kansas on October 17, Texas on November 7, the November 14 race at Phoenix, and the November 21 finale at Homestead. Only ten races run in the 2015 XFINITY Series season did not see Green finish in the 40th position.
TriStar Motorsports finished the season with 25 last-place finishes among three of its drivers, the most last-place runs by a team in any single NASCAR season. Toyota’s 27 last-place runs, the lion’s share again belonging to TriStar, equaled 1983’s record set by Pontiac for the most in a single XFINITY Series season.
Green himself finished the year with 88 last-place finishes across NASCAR’s top three divisions, 83 of them in the XFINITY Series. 75 of those 83 last-place runs came in the 153 XFINITY starts he’s made since he joined TriStar Motorsports as a “start-and-park” driver at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis on July 24, 2010 – a rate of one last-place finish in every other start.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Dexter Bean, a distant second in the 2015 title chase, was the only other driver with two last-place finishes. Ironically, Bean made just four starts all season and finished last in both Daytona races. He drove the #92 Chevrolet, a part-time “start-and-park” entry for King Autosport owned by Canadian veteran Mario Gosselin. The four races were Bean’s first in NASCAR’s top three divisions since 2009, the season he finished 36th in his lone Cup start that at Pocono on June 7.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Jeff Green (23)
2nd) Dexter Bean (2)
3rd) Ryan Ellis, C.J. Faison, Mike Harmon, Blake Koch, Charles Lewandoski, Carl Long, Morgan Shepherd, Derek White (1)
