Landon Huffman on Saturday’s controversial CARS Tour race at Wake County

This past weekend’s messy CARS Tour race at Wake County Speedway has sparked much conversation and scrutiny, including from the series’ most popular driver, Landon Huffman.

The driver of the Carroll Speedshop No. 57 detailed his frustrations with the Delta Heating and Cooling 175 on Tuesday duing an episode of Huffman Racing Radio. While he made it clear that he is an advocate of the series and its senior leadership, he also expects change to prevent some recurring inconsistencies.

First off, the decision from the Tour to not bring the field down to refuel after an incredible number of caution laps. In short, the series’ explanation for the decision was in response to Tri-County’s 2023 event where the tour brought the field into pit road to re-fuel. According to Kip Childress the teams felt the series ‘took the strategy out of their hands.’ 

Huffman who ironically won that race, the Old North State Nationals, responded:

“That race was designed to have strategy.” said Huffman There were three cautions in that race, planned controlled cautions. You had two tires in the pits. It was a 200 lap race. So you can’t go 200 laps at Tri-County on fuel. So you know you have to take fuel.

“This Saturday is completely different because this race is not designed to be a strategy race – That is an awful look because now you’re pinning everything on us and all we’re doing is abiding by the rule that you set out to create.”

Huffman also recalls a pre-season meeting between the series and various respected team owners and drivers. One of the topics discussed was adding laps to the Wake County race. 

“The consensus was no, we should not need a refuel caution given the circumstances. But the statement was made by management, and that’s Kip Childress and the director and whoever else was in the room, that if fuel became an issue because Dale Jr. was very strong about this point, he did not want these races to become fuel mileage races – They’re not designed to be fuel mileage races. They don’t want us fueling these cars up on pit road because it’s a hazard.

“So if at any point in time this race appeared to start to present an issue with fuel, they would make the decision to bring everyone down pit road and give us the opportunity to put fuel in out cars to prevent all the mess and carnage that would develop at the end of the race.”

“That was said in that meeting.

“Fast forward to Saturday night the racing was awful – The racing product is not on the series, that’s on the drivers, but the fuel issue is one hundred percent on the series and the decision makers between the flags. That’s who’s responsible for this. So at the end of the day, they folded, didn’t have the backbone to make the decision that was was obviously needed at the time”

The second issue was the racing product. 

“It was one of the most embarrassing races I’ve ever been apart of and the downside to this I think that this has completely exposed the quality of driver in the CARS Tour. I don’t say to downgrade the series because I do think that every driver in the series is capable of being a good race car driver. However eighty percent of those driver are not good racers. They’re just not.

“We had some wounds that were covered from Kenly. They were band aided up and this race completely ripped them wide open and now we’re bleeding out. – There is a little bit of responsibility as a driver to race at this level. No we’re not at a national level but we’re at supposed to be the premier traveling short track series in America. That is how this is marketed. 

“So in my opinion, if that’s the case then there needs to be a certain level of respect, a certain level of car control, respect for not just the drivers around you, but the people that work on the cars, the equipment, the money that goes into it, how much your own family and a lot of these kids and people’s situation is spending to go racing. And all that factors into being able to make decisions while behind the wheel that I would consider are good racing decisions.”

“There are not a lot of good racing decisions made in this series right now.”