SEASON IN REVIEW
Grass Valley, California driver Matt DiBenedetto picked up his first LASTCAR XFINITY Series Championship in 2016, scoring fourteen last-place finishes in nineteen starts during a thirty-three race season. Teamed with Jeff Green, who finished second in the standings, eight finishes behind, DiBenedetto earned TriStar Motorsports’ sixth consecutive LASTCAR title and came within one finish of becoming the first driver to score two LASTCAR titles in the same season.
DiBenedetto came to NASCAR in 2009 as a 17-year-old development driver for Joe Gibbs Racing. He won two K&N Pro Series East races that year, taking the checkers at Tri-County (North Carolina) Motor Speedway and Loudon, and came home 14th in the standings despite a partial schedule. That same year, Gibbs put DiBenedetto into his first XFINITY Series race at Memphis, where he came home 14th. He followed this up with two more Top Tens in 2010, one each at Nashville and Iowa, the latter a series-best 9th.
In 2011, DiBenedetto and Gibbs parted ways. Driving for Laerte Zatta, he ran his first full season in K&N Pro Series East that year, scoring a third victory at the tough Bowman Gray Stadium on his way to a 4th-place finish in points. In 2012, he returned to the XFINITY Series with The Motorsports Group (TMG) as one of a number of “start-and-park” drivers, never finishing better than 40th. He continued this role through 2014, both for TMG and SR2 Motorsports, alongside fellow newcomer Tanner Berryhill.
Finally, in 2015, DiBenedetto got his break, scoring a full-time, full-race effort with BK Racing. Following Michael Waltrip’s start in his #83 Toyota for the Daytona 500, DiBenedetto missed only two races and finished a season-best 18th at Talladega, ranking him a close second in the Rookie of the Year battle behind Brett Moffitt. 2016 saw the young driver make his first full-season effort, highlighted by a career-best 6th at Bristol. His emotional interview after the race earned him many new fans.
The XFINITY Series race at Bristol, held the day before on April 16, also saw DiBenedetto make a brief appearance. He was now making his second start for TriStar Motorsports, driving the same dominant “start-and-park” effort with which Jeff Green had set so many last-place records. Green started the year right where he left off. With the exception of the Daytona opener on February 20, Green had earned nine lasts in ten races dating back to the closing weeks of 2015. His last-place run at Atlanta on February 27th was Toyota’s 250th across NASCAR’s top three divisions. But following a three-race stretch at Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, TriStar put DiBenedetto in Green’s #10.
In his season debut at Fontana on March 19, DiBenedetto earned his first XFINITY last-place finish of the season, out after two laps with brake issues. The aforementioned race at Bristol came two rounds later, during the series’ first-ever event with heat races. That day, DiBenedetto finished last in both Heat Race #1 and the main event, out after 3 and 4 laps respectively with brake issues. A three-race stretch from May to June snatched away the LASTCAR lead from Jeff Green: 40th-place runs at Charlotte on May 28, Pocono on June 4, and Michigan on June 11. From there, no other driver contested the lead.
The sixth and seventh last-place runs of 2016 came in consecutive events: a rear gear problem at Kentucky on July 8, then a vibration on July 16 in Loudon. He pulled the season sweep at Bristol on August 19, out with brake issues, then scored his ninth during the September 3 race at Darlington. This started another three-race stretch with lasts at Richmond on September 9 and Chicagoland on September 17. At Dover on October 2, following damage suffered during a Lap 2 incident following Josh Wise’s blown engine, DiBenedetto earned his eleventh last-place finish, securing him the LASTCAR title with five races to go. He’d cross paths with Wise once more, but not until he finished the year by sweeping the final two rounds: Phoenix on November 12 and Homestead on November 19.
At Homestead, DiBenedetto stood in position to become the first NASCAR driver to score multiple LASTCAR titles in the same season. Locked in a three-way tie with Wise and Reed Sorenson for the LASTCAR Cup Series title, DiBenedetto needed only pull a weekend sweep at Homestead to lock up the championship. In the end, his #49 NASCAR Heat Evolution Toyota finished 27th while Sorenson ran 32nd, the last-place finish for Aric Almirola handing the title to Wise.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
While Jeff Green finished a distant second in the LASTCAR standings, trailing three more fields after his early three-race streak, the all-time last-place leader also enjoyed his best run in years. Driving for Rick Ware during the July 1 race at Daytona, Green came home a strong 7th, his first top-ten finish in the series since May 13, 2005 at Richmond. He also ran 21st at Kansas on October 15 in a second car owned by B.J. McLeod, the best finish by McLeod’s #99 car.
Scotsman driver John Jackson was one of seven drivers to score their first XFINITY last-place finishes in 2016, his coming at Iowa on July 30 following early electrical issues. It was the 52-year-old Jackson’s 19th series start. Monterrey, Mexico’s Daniel Suarez, who became NASCAR’s first foreign-born champion with a win in the Homestead finale, was without a last-place finish in any of his 68 series starts.
The new sprint race format, added to a handful of races in 2016, affected the outcome of the May 14 race at Dover. Justin Marks, driving his #42 Katerra Chevrolet fielded by Chip Ganassi Racing, wrecked hard after 26 laps of Heat Race #2. Unable to go to a backup car, Marks was credited with his first last-place finish, having not completed any laps of the main. Barely three months later, Marks had a much better day, taking the checkers in the rain-soaked Mid-Ohio Challenge for his first series victory.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Matt DiBenedetto (14)
2nd) Jeff Green (6)
3rd) Timmy Hill, Josh Wise (2)
4th) Mike Bliss, Chris Cook, John Jackson, Justin Marks, B.J. McLeod, Todd Peck, Ryan Preece, Josh Reaume, Garrett Smithley (1)
