Caden Kvapil makes late pass to beat dominant Carson Brown in Tar Heel 250

After a rollercoaster of a day dodging rain drops and the uncertainty of how much of the race would be run, Caden Kvapil emerged victorious at Hickory Motor Speedway, collecting his career first super late model win in the Tar Heel 250 with the ASA STARS National Tour.

Kvapil got the win after a late race restart with less than ten laps to go setting up a door-to-door battle between he and the race’s dominating force, Carson Brown. Kvapil was able to challenge from the high side at the drop of the green flag, but then fell back and crossed over Brown to complete the pass going low into turn one.

He did this after having started deep in the field, 22nd, due to qualifying being set by the rule book due to persistent rain showers throughout the day.

Kvapil methodically worked his way through the field to get to the front as quickly as possible with the threat of rain looming. He found himself in contention at just the right time.

“I didn’t hear a whole lot about the forecast during the race,” he said.  “I kind of figured rain was out of the picture. We had a little bit at the end but nothing to be worried about.”

With the thought of rain out of his mind, Kvapil locked in and utilized track position to work his way to the front but still had to make adjustments in order to get there.

“It was a lot of track position I feel like” he said. “Early in the race, I think before the first yellow, I was already up to 13th or so from 22nd and I knew we had a really fast car and for some reason just every restart the balance would change a whole lot and it’d go to complete opposite of what I was fighting. For a couple stints of that race I thought we were really good and had a shot at it and then we’d restart and it’d be really bad. I don’t know, it just felt like I didn’t have enough heat in the front tires and so we really focused on that towards the end when I was up front and I think that’s what helped me get the win and being able to fire off on the top and hold him tight definitely was important.”

Just getting to this race was a challenge for the Kvapil and the GoFas Racing team. Among those was not having raced in a super late model in quite some time.

“Yeah, it was pretty intense,” Kvapil said after the race. “We obviously never qualified and I started 22nd. We haven’t raced a super race since I think November last year, at the Freedom Factory. So we haven’t been doing this a whole lot and honestly we haven’t really even thought about working on this car. We’ve kind of pushed it away and not really worried about it too much. This race kind of snuck up on us. We came here and tested about three weeks ago and we tried a lot.

For Carson Brown, who led the majority of the race, it was all he could do to hang on throughout the numerous restarts during the race. Mind you, most thought this race wouldn’t last past stage one with the incoming weather. That weather never materialized and allowed this race to be run to its fully scheduled distance.

I feel like we did everything we could strategy wise” said Brown. “We don’t really know if it was going to rain and then somehow all the cells just broke up and yeah, I think strategy played a little bit of a factor there..

“We led 230, 240 laps and just always wish you’re one spot better,” he continued. “We had a dominating race and then just kind of lost it there at the end. I’m not quite sure what else I could have done. I’d like to watch it back just to see, but yeah, I think just firing off on the restarts was just really hard as the control car.”

He said he felt like some games were being played by the second place car, which added to his challenge.

“I feel like I was firing off really good and then somehow we got beat into turn one every single time,” he explained. “All the guys are hanging back and then getting five to 10 mile an hour runs to the restart box. I think that’s just killing us. They’re getting angle off into one and then we’re having to take away our angle.”

Constantly hovering in the top three throughout the race was Kyle Steckly. Driving this year for Wilson Motorsports, Steckly was happy to finish off this race solidly after fighting all night for that podium spot.

“It was a good night,” he said. “I think we were kind of just about a third place car and we had a lot of really hard battles with [Tristan] McKee and a couple other guys. It was fun. Hard racing here at a short track, Hickory Motor Speedway and, the a APC Parts Center 22 car was good.

“The Wilson guys made it better every stop,” Steckly added. “Just never quite enough to where we needed to be in those top two spots. But, all in all, a really good day, hard racing and a lot of fun to be back with a ASA and my Wilson guys. And, uh, we’ll keep working on this, APC Auto Parts Centers car and I appreciate everyone who helps out and getting me here and we’ll go on to the next one.”

Results from the Tar Heel 250 at Hickory Motor Speedway.

1. Caden Kvapil
2. Carson Brown
3. Kyle Steckly
4. Chase Pinsonneault
5. William Sawalich
6. Derek Thorn
7. Tristan McKee
8. Spencer Davis
9. Matthew Craig
10. Cory Hall
11. Colby Howard
12. Issac Kitzmiller
13. Stephen Nasse
14. Nick Tucker
15. Jade Avedisian
16. Derek Kraus
17. Jett Noland
18. Brandon Lopez
19. Vito Cancilla
20. Carson Ware
21. Casey Roderick
22. Justin Crider
23. George Phillips
24. Conner Jones
25. Bubba Pollard