Keelan Harvick won the CARS Pro Late Model Tour race at Florence from the pole, but he almost didn’t make it to Turn 1 on the start.
Harvick missed a shift on the start and the field had to take evasive action to miss him. He got his feet back under him and was able to rally back, taking the lead from Conner Jones with 45 laps to go. Harvick held a steady gap ahead of Jones the rest of the race to claim his second career CARS Tour win.
“I just completely messed up,” Harvick said after the win in regards to the initial start. “I missed a shift. But we rallied back and got the win. A very costly mistake on my part. I was really confident, because I knew the Rackeley W.A.R. guys brought me a really fast car. I knew I had a really fast car, and I just couldn’t make a mistake again.”
While Jones finished runner up behind Harvick, he didn’t feel like there was too much more he could have done to chase down the youngster.
“I thought we were pretty good all night,” Jones said. “We just lost stability late. I think if we had a little bit more stability we’d have been fine. But [Harvick’s] car was just so stable and good. It was kind of hard to keep up with him.”
Behind the lead two, Tyler Reif and Isaac Kitzmiller had a hard fought battle for the final podium spot. Kitzmiller was able to get to the inside of Reif in the corners, but Reif used the outside line to keep Kitzmiller at bay and claim the third spot.
“It was really cool,” Reif said on the FloRacing broadcast after the race. “Me and Isaac race against each other in the ARCA Menards main and East Series. It’s pretty cool to race him at the NASCAR [level] and the CARS Tour [level]. I thought we were better. I’m just happy to come home with a good finish. Recently we’ve been struggling. Just [being in] wrecks and not having enough speed, so it feels good to finally come home with the car in one piece. We’ll work on it for the next one.”
Kitzmiller also enjoyed the battle he had with Reif, even though he came up one spot short of the podium.
“That was super awesome,” Kitzmiller said. “Tyler’s always raced super clean. He’s just a super clean racer. I wouldn’t want to race side-by-side with anyone else. He gave me a lot of room. He pinched me when he could, but obviously he’s doing the right thing.”
Kitzmiller has been taking the transition between the ARCA car and the Pro Late Model well and he knows where he needs to improve.
“I just got to be able to adapt to each car and do what I can in the car,” Kitzmiller said. “The biggest thing is getting it set up in practice. I feel like that’s the biggest thing. And something I really want to do is get long run speed that will help the car stay good throughout the whole race. And I think we lack that a little bit.”
Brandon Lopez rounded out the top five, which was a much needed boost for him and the team. Ben Maier maintains the points lead, but with him finishing in sixth, Lopez was able to eat into the gap slightly.
“We definitely have the cars,” Lopez said. “We just got to come prepared like we have been a couple times this year. Just got to be better on the A-game and be better earlier. Really tonight [was] just about saving tires. I don’t think I got full throttle once for the last 10 or 15 laps. So [I] was just trying to save my tires and the guys in the mid-pack and did what they were going to do. We move up when we can, and we were there at the end.
“I tried to get past [Kitzmiller] and [Reif], but they were side-by-side on the corner exit. So, nothing really I could do there unless I wanted to take my teammate three wide on the top. It just wasn’t worth doing that to one of our other cars. Top five [is] good. Finished in front of the guys who I needed to. [I] wish we were a couple better. I think we had a top three car, but kind of had to play the game.”
With only three races left in the season, the pressure is on as Lopez tries to chase Maier down in the fight for the championship.
The full finishing results can be viewed below.
zMax CARS Pro Late Model Tour
Florence Motor Speedway
August 29, 2025
1. #62 Keelan Harvick
2. #44 Conner Jones
3. #47 Tyler Reif
4. #25 Isaac Kitzmiller
5. #6L Brandon Lopez
6. #6 Ben Maier
7. #24 Jade Avedisian
8. #31 Chase Burgeson
9. #15 Case James
10. #97 Dylan Garner
11. #62 Rodney Dowless
12. #51 Cody Ware
13. #22 Dusty Garus
