LUCAMA, NC – Deac McCaskill led wire-to-wire to claim the victory in the season opening race for the Championship Auto Racing Series (CARS) Late Model Stock Tour at Southern National Motorsports Park on Sunday.
McCaskill’s victory is his second career CARS Tour victory, coming at the same track he claimed his first CARS Tour win at last May. While he led wire-to-wire, the victory was still hard fought as he had to hold off challenges from Josh Berry then had to hold back a late race charge from Tommy Lemons, Jr.
“We had a great car, man,” McCaskill said in victory lane. “We knew it from when we unloaded yesterday. It was just bad fast, man. We made a few small adjustments. We were able to practice last night when it cooled off. I thought it was going to be a lot cooler, but it heated up. The car just drove good, man. It got just a little free on that long run there, but after that caution the car just gripped up good, and it fired off good on the restart. Just had to hit my marks every time and not make any mistakes.”
Berry’s strength forced McCaskill to race a little harder than he wanted to. The veteran driver, who has won four championships at Southern National was trying to conserve tires.
“”Josh Berry is a phenomenal talent,” McCaskill remarked. “I was behind him at Orange County last year and I couldn’t make him mess up, so I knew he wasn’t gonna mess up. It’s a great day for us, man.”
Lemons’ was more satisfied with his second place finish than normal. He qualified 18th for the race and managed to race his way through the field.
“We had an awesome car,” Lemons said after the race. “It’s too bad the driver let us down in qualifying. Just killed our lap, put us in bad track position. To come from 18th to second, you can’t really hang our heads too far. This thing was flying right there at the end of the race. If it could have been lap 155, it might have been different. If I had qualified better, it would have been different, too. First time at the racetrack with this racecar. We can’t hang our heads, that car’s going to win some races this year.
“I beat myself up there, pretty shitty really. Just gotta work on qualifying on the driver aspect, he let us down.”
Josh Berry, who spend much of the race in second, was passed by Lemons with seven laps remaining and was forced to settle for a third place finish.
“It’s a good day for us,” Berry commented after the race. “Typically we’ve struggled here in the past. That was the best we’ve been here by far. It was just a little bit loose. I tried to keep it under me there. That last run at Deac with about ten to go, that was all I had. We missed it a little bit, but overall it was a good day for us. We can build on it when we come back in a couple of months.”
Last year’s championship runner-up, Myatt Snider, finished fourth while Matt Bowling finished fifth in his CARS Tour debut. Rounding out the top-10 were Chad McCumbee, Bradley McCaskill, Jeb Burton, Justin Johnson and Justin Crider.
The race was slowed by a handful of cautions. The most significant caution came out on lap 102 when Michael Fose, Craig Stallard and Austin McDaniel were involved in a wreck in turn one. Fose’s car came to a rest on top of Stallard’s car, drawing the red flag.
“It’s mostly body,” Fose said. “I don’t know what really happened there. Got loose off turn four and then I was looking at the sky basically. I don’t know what all happened but, try to fix it up and go again I reckon.”
The next race for the CARS Tour will be on April 16th when the series heads to Orange County Speedway in Rougemont, North Carolina.
Short Track SCENE’s Zach Evans contributed to this report.
Unofficial Results:
- Deac McCaskill
- Tommy Lemons, Jr.
- Josh Berry
- Myatt Snider
- Matt Bowling
- Chad McCumbee
- Bradley McCaskill
- Jeb Burton
- Justin Johnson
- Justin Crider
- Mike Darne
- Christian Eckes
- Chase Purdy
- Tal Davidson
- Ryan Wilson
- Jeff Oakley
- Austin McDaniel
- Hayden Humphrey
- Craig Stallard
- Michael Fose
- Chris Hudspeth
- Chris David
- Ronald Hill
- Thomas Beane
- Mason Diaz
- Stefan Parsons
- Adam Murray
