PHOTO: Steven Taranto, @STaranto92
SEASON IN REVIEW
Driftwood, Texas driver Bayley Currey picked up his first LASTCAR XFINITY Series Championship in 2022, scoring two last-place finishes in thirty-three races during a thirty-three-race season.
The 2022 season marked Currey’s fifth XFINITY Series season. He can be found working along with his crew, having previously driven for several of the sport’s smaller teams. Among these were the short-lived JP Motorsports in 2018, then longtime team owners B.J. McLeod, Rick Ware, Rod Sieg, and Mike Harmon. It was with Harmon that Currey was teamed with Kyle Weatherman, and during the pandemic-affected 2020 campaign the pair turned in some surprising stage runs and overall finishes. But after a difficult first part of the 2021 season, including a hot race at Texas where a faulty battery kept him from even starting, Currey made the move to Johnny Davis’ JD Motorsports in September. He finished 13th in his first start for the team in Las Vegas.
Heading into the 2022 campaign, Currey switched from JD Motorsports’ #15 entry to the #4 vacated by Landon Cassill, who had moved on to Kaulig Racing. This was part of a reduction by the JD team from four teams to only two, suspending both the #0 and #15 entries. Cassill’s sponsor Voyager went with him, leaving Currey with only piecemeal sponsorship for the year. His first last-place run of the year came in a fully-funded ride at a track in his home state. For the Circuit of the Americas on March 26th, Currey ran a throwback paint scheme with sponsor Chasco Constructors, his car painted white with blue numbers to resemble his old late model. But after just 13 laps, the engine let go in a big plume of smoke, leaving him 38th.
Currey would not finish last again for 26 races – the October 29th race at Martinsville that was next-to-last on the season. Again, he was fully sponsored, this time welcoming back pain reliever Aleve, which had backed XFINITY teams like Jay Robinson Racing in the past. The signing showed an improving sponsorship forecast for driver and team, as other brands like Hy-Vee markets had joined during the summer. But after just 57 laps, Currey lost a right-front tire and slammed the wall, breaking the suspension so badly that he had to be towed to the garage.
Currey’s last-place run came toward the end of a tight LASTCAR XFINITY Series Championship where, entering the final race of the year, only Currey and three other drivers had finished last in more than one race – Bayley Currey, Jeb Burton, and Rajah Caruth. Currey had just taken the lead from Poole on a bottom-ten tiebreaker of 13-8. Another five drivers were still in contention, but only if they finished last in the following week’s finale at Phoenix.
That list of nine contenders shrank to eight after Matt Mills failed to qualify. Title contender Joe Graf, Jr. started last in a backup car after a wreck in practice and his #07 ARMSLIST.com Ford ran near the back of the pack, right where he needed to be to take the title. Graf was a favored challenger as he had more Bottom Fives and Bottom Tens than Currey. Graf then lost the spot to Brandon Brown, who stepped in as Graf’s teammate in the #08 Amptricity Ford. Brown, who had more Bottom Fives than Currey, had wrecked in Turn 2, cleared the “Crash Clock,” then spent 35 laps in the garage for repairs. Brown returned to the race with a firm grip on last place while Currey, needing a Bottom Five to take the title back from Brown, was running inside the Top 15. But when Dillon Bassett lost an engine inside the final 50 laps, Brown had just enough time to climb out of last place, leaving Bassett in 38th and removing Brown from LASTCAR title contention in the final ten laps.
In the last few circuits, Currey’s final last-place challenger was teammate Brennan Poole, who had taken the LASTCAR lead with two last-place runs with Currey’s old ride at Mike Harmon Racing. Poole, too, found his way to JD Motorsports, sharing the #6 entry with Ryan Vargas. If Poole finished in the Bottom Five while Currey did not, Poole would take the title. But as the laps ran out, Poole held onto 29th – five spots from taking the title – and 19th-place Currey was crowned champion. Currey prevailed on the bottom-ten tiebreaker over Poole, 13-9.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Two drivers were disqualified, classifying them last in their respective fields. On March 5th at Las Vegas, Brennan Poole appeared headed to his first last-place finish in his 147th series start after his #47 Lerner & Rowe Injury Lawyers Chevrolet lost an engine after only three laps. Joe Graf, Jr.’s #07 Bucked Up / LFG Burn Ford took 29th, but was docked for missing lug nuts, leaving him 38th. Also penalized on July 16th was Noah Gragson, who along with Landon Cassill were both disqualified after finishing 3rd and 4th at Loudon. Each car was found to be too low in post-race inspection, each on a different part of the car. This, the first multi-car disqualification in a points-paying NASCAR race since the inaugural World 600 in 1960, saved Julia Landauer from her first last-place finish in her series debut with Alpha Prime Racing.
Brennan Poole would ultimately score his first two XFINITY Series last-place finishes, the first of which coming at Richmond on April 2nd after a mid-race rear gear issue on the Mike Harmon #47. Poole’s second last-place run at Martinsville on April 8th saw his car trail smoke on pit road, which grew worse the moment he took the green flag. Poole didn’t complete a single lap of that night’s race.
Poole was one of twelve drivers to score their first XFINITY last-place finishes in 2022, headlined by Justin Allgaier, whose crash at Watkins Glen on August 20th was his first in 394 career XFINITY starts. The others were Jade Buford (Atlanta on March 19th), Chandler Smith (Talladega on April 23rd), Rajah Caruth (Dover on April 30th), Sheldon Creed (Darlington on May 7th), Sam Mayer (Portland on June 4th), Will Rodgers (July 2nd at Road America), Sage Karam (July 9th at Atlanta), Jeb Burton (July 30th at Indianapolis), Sammy Smith (August 26th at Daytona), and Kris Wright (October 8th at Charlotte’s “Roval”).
Among the bizarre last-place exits of the season were Jeb Burton’s at Indianapolis’ road course on July 30th, where his #27 Ergodyne Work Gear Chevrolet had an issue with the track bar during the pace laps – an issue that couldn’t be resolved in the garage area. Timmy Hill had only a minor spin at Charlotte on May 28th, but apparently broke a shock mount in the process, stopping his #13 Prime Toyota. Sheldon Creed’s blown engine at Darlington on May 7th was caused by the driver accidentally shifting from third gear to neutral at the start, cutting short his race in the #2 Whelen Chevrolet. Tommy Joe Martins’ last-place run in the second Darlington race on September 3rd was due to debris puncturing the grille of his #5 Capital City Chevrolet – the first XFINITY Series last-place run due to “radiator” trouble since 2002.
At Homestead on October 22nd, J.J. Yeley picked up Ford’s 1,000th NASCAR last-place finish after his #66 WorkPro Breast Cancer Awareness Ford qualified 14th, only to be involved in a crash after just three laps. This came just weeks after the October 1st race at Talladega, where all 38 starters finished under power. Such a thing had not happened in a XFINITY race since August 15, 1998 at Michigan. Mason Massey finished last, his #91 Anderson Power Services Chevrolet having lost multiple laps due to an electrical issue early in the race.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Jeb Burton [4 B5s], Rajah Caruth [2 B5s], Bayley Currey [5 B5s, 13 B10s], Brennan Poole [5 B5s, 9 B10s] (2)
2nd) Justin Allgaier, Caesar Bacarella, Dillon Bassett, Brandon Brown, Jade Buford, Landon Cassill, Sheldon Creed, Jeffrey Earnhardt, Joe Graf, Jr., Noah Gragson, Riley Herbst, Timmy Hill, Sage Karam, Tommy Joe Martins, Mason Massey, Sam Mayer, Matt Mills, Will Rodgers, Ryan Sieg, Chandler Smith, Sammy Smith, Ryan Vargas, Kyle Weatherman, Kris Wright, J.J. Yeley (1)
