PHOTO: Steven Taranto, @STaranto92
SEASON IN REVIEW
Douglasville, Georgia driver Mason Massey picked up his first LASTCAR Truck Series Championship in 2024, scoring two last-place finishes in sixteen starts during a twenty-three race season.
Massey was competing in only his third season in the Truck Series, having landed a full-time effort with Randy Young’s #02 Chevrolet with sponsorship from his longtime backers Brunt Workwear and Anderson Power Services. Prior to that year, Massey’s focus had been on the XFINITY Series, where he’d driven for small teams like B.J. McLeod Motorsports, DGM Racing, and SS-Green Light Racing, making fifty-two starts in all. Among his last-place battles, his most famous had been on June 1, 2020 at Bristol, where he missed the start due to a transmission issue. The B.J. McLeod crew worked until Lap 184 to get him back on the track. He managed to pass seven cars and come home in 30th. Massey’s career-best finish had been a 6th in Atlanta, but he’d also showed speed at Loudon, where he scored his other two top-ten finishes.
Prior to 2024, Massey had just fourteen starts in the Truck Series with a best finish of 11th at Texas in 2023. All but one of those starts came with the Reaume Brothers, another of the series’ underfunded teams. Though the first six races of the year, Massey equaled his career-best with another 11th at Martinsville, but this was also one round after his first last-place run at Circuit of the Americas. It was there on March 23rd that Massey lost the brakes after 32 laps. His second last-place run of the year came ten rounds later at IRP on July 19th, where his #02 Brunt Chevrolet suffered damage in the opening laps after a flat right-front tire put him in the wall. The team managed repairs, only to go behind the wall once more, their day done. After the next race at Richmond, where Massey finished three laps down in 26th, he was out of the ride.
Heading into the championship finale, Massey had not made another start, and yet remained the leader in the 2024 LASTCAR Truck Series standings as the only driver with two finishes. Massey wasn’t entered in the season finale on November 8th, but his five closest contenders were, including a driver who had twice lost his ride during the season. Thad Moffitt began the year with a last-place finish in the Daytona opener on February 6th, his #46 Customers Bank Chevrolet involved in a Lap 6 multi-truck wreck headed into Turn 3. Moffitt was driving for Lane Moore’s new team Faction 46, which closed before the July 12th Pocono race. The Young’s team fielded the #46 for Moffitt instead, only for Moffitt to lose that ride in five of the year’s last six races. Moffitt returned for the finale with sponsorship from Pristine Auction. With more Bottom Fives and Bottom Tens than Massey, he only needed a last-place finish for the title. But when Jack Wood wrecked his #91 Mongoose Chevrolet on Lap 59, Massey locked-up the title without even starting the race.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
The first of two disqualifications on the season began in the second round on February 24th at Atlanta. There, Chistian Eckes appeared headed to his first last-place finish after brake issues while leading sent his #19 NAPA AutoCare Chevrolet behind the wall. But Layne Riggs, the 24th-place finisher in the #38 Northside Hospital Ford, was disqualified for a loose upper windshield, just as the #38 team had the previous fall at Homestead when Zane Smith was driving. This occurred in the shortest Truck Series field since 2020 with just 33 starters.
The other disqualification occurred on May 24th, when Corey Heim finished 2nd at Charlotte after sweeping both stages and twice recovering from bad pit stops – only for the last of those terrible stops to hand him a DQ after the tire changer left three loose lug nuts on the right-rear wheel. Heim took last place from Jeffrey Earnhardt, who would have scored the first Truck Series last-place finish for the #67 after his Forgotten Coast K9 Toyota was collected in a multi-truck pileup.
Later that year at Pocono on July 12th, Spencer Boyd gave the #76 its first Truck Series last-place run since 1995 when his new team, Freedom Racing Enterprises, had a hub failure after five laps. Justin S. Carroll’s brake failure on the #90 Carroll’s Automotive / Duratain Toyota after 57 laps around Bristol on March 16th gave the #90 its first Truck Series last-place run since 2002, and its first with a driver other than Lance Norick. Timmy Hill’s electrical issues at Las Vegas on March 1st handed him his first last-place run in a Truck Series race since 2018.
Moffitt, Riggs, Carroll, and Heim were among the thirteen different drivers to each score their first Truck Series last-place finishes in 2024. Two of these came in their series debuts: Jerry Bohlman, who was flagged off the track at Richmond on August 10th for running too slow in the #20 Bowl4Life Chevrolet, and Jayson Alexander, who wrecked the #21 CWR LLC Ford after 45 laps at Milwaukee barely two days after he picked up the ride at Floridian Motorsports following sponsorship issues for Blake Lothian. Lothian had himself finished last at Martinsville on April 5th when a radiator hose popped off after his #20 GGT Energy Solutions Chevrolet had a water leak before the start of the race. Ty Majeski, who went on to win the series championship, also had early race issues at Kansas on May 4th, whe his #98 Road Ranger Ford had a flat tire on the pace laps that went down on Lap 1, forcing a series of stops that led to the expiration of his “Crash Clock.”
But the most significant first-time last-place finisher was one Kyle Busch, who in his 175th series start at Darlington on May 10th was involved in an early crash while battling for the lead, destroying the right side of his #7 BAMF Enterprises Chevrolet. Busch had managed to clear the “Crash Clock” after his crash, only to wreck a second time and end his night after only six laps. With that, Busch became the 44th different driver to complete the LASTCAR Triple Crown – nearly twenty years after he’d finished last in one XFINITY and Cup race.
At Texas on April 12th, Tyler Ankrum crashed not one, but two #18 LiUNA! Chevrolets on the same day. After a practice crash sent him to a backup, that truck was wrecked in a Lap 2 pileup, handing Ankrum his second last-place finish and first since 2021.
By far the most controversial last-place finish of the season occurred at Homestead on October 26th at Homestead, where a frustrated Conner Jones – who had scored his own first last-place run at Bristol on September 19th – bumped Matt Mills’ #42 Utilitra / J.F. Electric Chevrolet into a spin midway through Turns 3 and 4. Mills’ truck skated up the track and smacked the wall flush with the right side, then caught fire as it stopped against the tire barriers. Jones was suspended for one race while Mills was hospitalized overnight for smoke inhalation.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Mason Massey (2)
2nd) Jayson Alexander, Marco Andretti, Tyler Ankrum, Norm Benning, Jerry Bohlman, Spencer Boyd, Kyle Busch, Justin S. Carroll, Bayley Currey, Corey Heim, Timmy Hill, Bret Holmes, Colby Howard, Trey Hutchens, Conner Jones, Blake Lothian, Ty Majeski, Matt Mills, Thad Moffitt, Layne Riggs, Jack Wood (1)
