PHOTO: Brock Beard
SEASON IN REVIEW
Owensboro, Kentucky driver Jeff Green picked up his sixth LASTCAR XFINITY Series Championship in 2017, scoring thirteen last-place finishes in thirty-one starts during a thirty-three race season. In the process, Green first claimed his 100th NASCAR last-place finish at Iowa on July 29, then his 100th in the XFINITY Series at Charlotte on October 7. He clinched the title at Dover on September 30 with five races remaining. The LASTCAR title, Green’s first since 2015, breaks a tie with the late J.D. McDuffie for the most by a single driver in the sport’s history.
Late in the 2016 season, Green began to drive for B.J. McLeod Motorsports, helping the team get its #99 team started. In their first race together that October at Kansas, Green turned in a strong 21st-place finish, then ran two more races for them to round out the season. He would rejoin McLeod’s team in 2017, leaving TriStar Motorsports after “start-and-parking” the team’s cars since late 2010. TriStar themselves were turning their focus to Cup, having acquired a Charter and driver Cole Whitt to complement J.J. Yeley’s efforts in XFINITY. It turned out to be a tragic season for TriStar, whose team founder, Mark Smith, succumbed to a long battle with cancer in July.
Green began the 2017 season in McLeod’s flagship #8 Chevrolet with his new owner in the #78 and David Starr in the #99 that Green had debuted. Bobby Dotter’s team SS-Green Light Racing would help field Starr’s #99 for the rest of the season. Green’s year started with mechanical issues, then a crash at Daytona, leaving him 39th of 40 ahead of Starr, and ran no better than 25th in his first six starts with the team. Then came Talladega on May 6, where Green enjoyed one of his strongest runs in recent memory. Starting last in the field, Green took the lead on Lap 72 and paced the field for 18 laps, the longest he’d led a XFINITY race since November 2, 2002. From that race to this, Green scored 82 of his 90 last-place finishes to that point.
At the same time, RSS Racing was following TriStar’s model by entering “start-and-park” cars on a regular basis. Sadly, the team would also share in deep personal tragedy as Shane Sieg, older brother of flagship driver Ryan, would pass away in August.
RSS’ driver of the “start-and-park” #93 for 2017 had been Truck Series underdog Jordan Anderson, who made himself the early LASTCAR favorite. After his car was withdrawn at Daytona, the finished 39th at Atlanta, Anderson rattled off a stretch of five consecutive last-place finishes, joining Green as the only two drivers with a last-place streak that long. The streak ended at Richmond on April 29, one week before Green’s breakout run at Talladega. Green himself was the one who ended it, as he took over the controls and finished 40th. Other than a one-off by Stephen Leicht two rounds later at Charlotte, Green was back to “start-and-park” duty for RSS for the remainder of 2017.
Green’s second last-place run of 2017 came at Dover on May 27, where the #93 cited electrical issues for the sixth-straight race. The third came at Pocono on June 10, number four at Iowa on June 24, and the fifth at Indianapolis on July 22 equaled Anderson’s total for the year. Green took the lead from Anderson in the following week’s return to Iowa on July 29, and in doing so scored the 100th last-place finish of his NASCAR career. At the time, he was still five finishes away from scoring 100 in the XFINITY Series alone. It didn’t take him long to close ground. Green’s seventh came at Road America on August 27, an eighth at Richmond on September 8, number nine at Kentucky on September 23, and number ten at Dover on September 30. The Dover finish came after a hard crash on the apron of Turn 4, where he was collected by the spinning Brandon Jones. The finish secured Green the 2017 LASTCAR title with five races still to go.
Dover also saw RSS Racing debut a second “start-and-park” car, the #38 Chevrolet, with Cup rookie Gray Gaulding driving to a 34th-place finish. Gaulding was set to drive the car again the following week at Charlotte, where Green now sat at 99 XFINITY Series last-place finishes. The drivers were then swapped by race day with Green in the #38, painted the same red-and-black as his #93. It made no difference. Two laps into the Charlotte race, Green pulled into the garage area, edging Gaulding in the black-and-blue #93. With that, Green scored his 100th XFINITY Series last-place finish and his third last-place run in a row. He’d extend the streak to four at Kansas on October 21, where he earned his twelfth last-place finish of the season. Number 13 came in the season finale at Homestead.
At Darlington on September 1 – after Green scored his 100th last-place finish in NASCAR, but before he did in XFINITY – this author presented Green with a t-shirt commemorating his accomplishment. The shirt read “NASCAR Champion. LASTCAR Legend.”
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
The XFINITY Series, unlike Cup and Trucks, didn’t have a single short field in 2017. In fact, when one was threatened July 15 at Loudon, Motorsports Business Management entered a third car, an unsponsored #72 Dodge, with John Jackson behind the wheel. Jackson pulled off the track after four laps.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Jeff Green (13)
2nd) Jordan Anderson (5)
3rd) John Jackson, Morgan Shepherd, David Starr (2)
4th) Ray Black, Jr., Gray Gaulding, Brandon Jones, Blake Koch, Kyle Larson, Stephen Leicht, Matt Mills, Matt Tifft, Josh Williams (1)
