While countless media outlets trumpeted Jamie McMurray's Daytona 500 victory, Joe Nemechek's last-place finish went relatively unnoticed -- except by Brock Beard.

Beard, a 27-year-old law student from Antioch, Calif., created and maintains the LASTCAR Web site, in which he keeps track of every driver who ever finished last in each of the more than 2,200 Cup races since 1949. So while McMurray celebrated in Victory Lane, Nemechek's 18th last-place finish moved him into fourth all-time behind J.D. McDuffie, Derrike Cope and G.C. Spencer.

Beard said the idea behind the unusual site came from casual conversation between siblings and a love of numbers.

"My brother and I are huge fans," Beard said. "I kind of got him into it over the seasons. Between 2008 and 2009, my brother was asking me, 'Like, who does have the most last-place finishes?' And I said, 'Well, I don't know that.' So I started looking online and there weren't any databases for it.

"So initially, I started looking for who finished 43rd. I started with that, and I went to racing-reference.info and just started looking from 1998 until now and found out that Derrike Cope had the most last-place finishes with 13. That was interesting, but then I thought, 'Well, what about the Bud Shootout and the [qualifying races] and stuff.' So basically, for the entire offseason, I spent 90 percent of the time looking at Racing Reference and pulling up all these stats."

Once he started, Brock said it became somewhat of an obsession to complete the project. So much of his spare time that winter was spent painstakingly looking at each page of results, year by year, and compiling his list.

"I started it right around Christmastime and I wasn't done with it until the week before Daytona," Beard said. "So it pretty much took up the entire offseason. The challenging thing is I'm a law student at the same time, so I had to balance it with that."

With the list finally completed, Beard noticed some interesting things. Not only is it peppered with also-rans, but many of the sports' biggest names are high up in the rankings. Richard Petty may have won 200 times, but he also finished last on 15 other occasions.

"You see your Cale Yarboroughs, your Buddy Bakers, they're all up there," Beard said. "What's really exciting to me is the drivers who are still on the circuit and see where they rank all time. Just this week, Joe Nemechek just broke away to take the fourth position all by himself with 18. It's really fascinating to me." (Continued)