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CARS Late Model Stock Tour

Brenden Queen, Lee Pulliam dodge bullet to claim CARS Tour championship

Conner Jones claims biggest win of career

There were two distinct storylines on Saturday night in the ECMD 125 at North Wilkesboro Speedway and they never converged.

Brenden Queen simply needed to manage a 10-track position advantage over Connor Hall and he would claim the CARS Late Model Stock Tour championship. At the same time, there was a slugfest at work between Conner Jones, Carson Kvapil and Mini Tyrrell to win the final race of the season.

All the bragging rights.

Kvapil, the reigning two-time champion, led from the drop of the green but was hounded for much of the middle stages by Jones, fresh off his second career victory last week at Tri-County. The final competition caution of the season came with 24 laps to go and the three front-runners duked it out.

Jones threw a slider on Kvapil but got crossed over. Jones used the bumper and pulled even. Kvapil threw a slider right back. Ultimately, Jones threw one more slide, made it stick and drove away to the coolest victory lane of his career –the North Wilkesboro lift.

“It’s really sketchy going up that thing,” Jones said. “It’s like, creaking as they lift you up and I start to think about how it’s going to drop me but then I figure, I’m strapped into a race car, so I’ll be alright.”

But it’s the coolest win of his career, right?

“Definitely,” he said. “It’s a really legendary thing and it’s the biggest win of my career.”

Jones suddenly has found an extra figurative gear of speed with Mike Darne Racing and it comes down to this new Forrest Reynolds chassis.

“I’m very thankful I have such a good team behind me right now,” Jones said. “That new car has been really good to us. I don’t know what it is, but these Forrest Reynolds cars have been strong lately. I’m excited to go to the [South Carolina] 400 and the Battle of the Stars.”

Meanwhile, there was Queen, doing what he could to hang on to a healthy championship margin but on that nearly immediately started to feel very small.

Coming to take the green flag on the first restart on Lap 15, Queen felt his carburetor spring break and there was an immediate panic.

“I thought, yep, this is my luck and this is how I lose the championship,” Queen said. “We came this close again and we’re going to lose the championship by a couple of points again. I did have to learn how to drive for 30 laps. I had just one spring on the carburetor but it felt like I had no. The spring on the pedal would just stick, and I had to manually pull it back, with my foot so it didn’t stay stuck.

“That hurt me while I was racing people and I just didn’t want to make a mistake.”

Team owner and crew chief Lee Pulliam came over the radio and said he never broke a carburetor spring ever in his racing career and naturally, it happens on championship night, and nursing a narrow margin.  

“I was immediately thinking, my mind running a thousand different ways, but thank god we run two on the car and I just don’t want the second one to come off,” Pulliam said. “If it does, he’s going to have to pick up the throttle, but fortunately, we run a toe hook and that would have helped him but these races are all about a thousandths of a second so if your driver has to do all this extra stuff, that’s coming at the expense of lap time.

“So, my mind was racing, and he wants to pit, but I don’t want to give up track position. So I tell him to stay focused but he was playing with it and I just wanted him to not touch it unless he needed to.”

They just needed to nurse the car to pit road at the competition caution, where crew member David West was waiting and ready to make the fix, while Pulliam focused on all his other adjustments.

Queen was sweating bullets to get to that point, especially as Hall began charging towards the top five.

“I’m trying to make the corner, I’m tight on exit, and I’m just trying to get it to the break,” Queen said. “I knew David West was going to be down there waiting on me. We made it better. We weren’t quite as good as we wanted to be after that but we salvaged the day and won the war.”

It was a war Queen prevailed with alongside a racer and team owner that has become family.

“I wanted this for Lee more than me,” Queen said. “He works so hard and our team deserves it. I just get to be the guy lucky enough to hold the steering wheel.”

Queen gave Pulliam, a four-time NASCAR national series champion driver, his first championship in the CARS Tour as an owner.

“We’re just brothers,” Queen said. “Him and I think alike, we act alike. It’s almost scary, but that’s what makes us so special. You have that with certain crew chiefs and owners. I’d put Lee up against anybody on any Saturday night. He’s accomplished everything in the Late Model world, now he can knock this one off the list.”

CARS Late Model Stock Tour ECMD 125
North Wilkesboro Speedway
October 19 2024

  1. 44 Conner Jones
  2. 8 Carson Kvapil
  3. 81 Mini Tyrrell
  4. 22 Connor Hall
  5. 03 Brenden Queen
  6. 82 Connor Mosack
  7. 7M Tristan McKee
  8. 17 Kaden Honeycutt
  9. 15 Ryan Millington
  10. 2 Brandon Pierce
  11. 29 Brent Crews
  12. 55 Isabella Robusto -1
  13. 4 Dylon Wilson -1
  14. 7P Casey Pierce -6
  15. 57 Landon Huffman – OUT
  16. 04 Ronnie Bassett Jr. – OUT
  17. 2W Ryan Wilson – OUT
  18. 45 Parker Eatmon – OUT
  19. 00 Chase Burrow – OUT
  20. 71B Jake Bollman – OUT
  21. 77 Treyten Lapcevich – OUT
  22. 26 Peyton Sellers – OUT
  23. 77W Trevor Ward – OUT
  24. 70 Travis Baity – OUT
  25. 1 Andrew Grady – OUT
  26. 11 Buddy Isles Jr. – OUT
  27. 28 Landon S. Huffman – OUT
  28. 71 Aaron Donnelly – DNS

Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.

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