Brent Crews wins CARS race at Rougemont with some dramatics behind him

One major stock car prospect drew the widespread praise of his peers at Orange County Speedway whilst another drew their scorn.

That was the Orange Blossom 125 on Saturday night, won by Kevin Harvick Inc. driver Brent Crews, his first ever victory in CARS Tour competition. More dramatically, Bobby McCarty and Mini Tyrrell did not win and cited Connor Zilisch as a factor.

Arguably, Crews had the fastest car, having qualified on the outside pole and ran behind McCarty all race. He took the lead on Lap 86, a restart after trading paint with the three-time champion over the previous run but completed the pass and ran the rest of the race uncontested.

He completed a podium that included Kaden Honeycutt of Measmer Usry Racing and Carson Kvapil of JR Motorsports. Kevin Harvick Inc. had some obstacles to overcome with an overnight engine change too.

“Some backstory, we blew up yesterday and these guys didn’t get to the shop until 2 a.m. and came back on two hours of sleep,” Crews said. “All of practice today, we were not good. Honestly, we didn’t have a lot of faith but we stayed confident. We qualified second and the car was as good on Lap 2 as it was Lap 125. It was fun racing all those guys on the restarts — Bobby, Kaden, Mini, all of them raced me super hard all night. It’s finally good to win.”

https://twitter.com/FloRacing/status/1781887683314250127

He said that right as McCarty came by and said congratulations, a sentiment that was shared by the whole pit area, as everyone really likes racing with Crews.

Meanwhile, the equally heralded Zilisch did not leave Orange County in similar sentiments as both Tyrell and McCarty felt roughed up by the Trackhouse Racing prospect.

Racing for third, Zilisch traded paint with Tyrrell, and then came together with McCarty racing for second in an incident that eliminated all three of them from contention and also knocked out Treyten Lapcevich of Chad Bryant Racing.

Mini Tyrrell frustrated with Connor Zilisch and also feels like he shouldn't have been sent to the back

Such a good start to his season set back at OCS pic.twitter.com/TOcTAxpgeW

— Matt Weaver (@MattWeaverRA) April 21, 2024

“I don’t know man, the 28 (Zilisch) was just beating the door off me every chance he could get,” Tyrrell said. “I don’t know if I maybe came down on him a little bit. Every single corner, boom, boom. I was touching the outside fence in 3 and 4 every lap.

“He gets up there after he gets done running through me, he gets to Bobby and flat out dumps him right in front of me and I have nowhere to go.”

Tyrell did run into the spinning McCarty but stayed in the gas but was sent to the rear for being involved in the incident and he was frustrated with that decision too.

McCarty believes he was clear.

Disaster for Bobby McCarty in the @CARSTour LMSC feature. After losing the lead to @BrentCrews11, contact with @ConnorZilisch sends the No. 6 spinning!

Late laps coming for the #CARSTour at Orange County Speedway, watch on https://t.co/rUqaSFyymu. pic.twitter.com/e1ZC2mNCu9

— FloRacing (@FloRacing) April 21, 2024

“I haven’t seen a replay but I know I was clear,” he said. “I know 3 and 4 is a really wide corner and you can take a lot of different grooves but I assume it was a dive bomb for whatever reason, which is racing, man. It’s Orange County. It’s hard to pass. We had the car to beat and I’ll leave it at that.”

McCarty, team owner and car builder Marcus Richmond, and Tyrrell were all invited to the PRG hauler to talk it out with Zilisch. They didn’t really agree on it but it ended cordially, which the sports car and stock car ace appreciated.

“I didn’t have a scratch on the car until I got to Mini,” Zilisch said. “Mini was running me hard and chopping me pretty good. We were side by side for 5,6 or 7 laps there and we weren’t getting anywhere.

“I was getting frustrated and started entering lower into 3 and kind of running up in the center and he didn’t like that. He was running me really shallow into 1 and making it hard for me to be on the apron. I had to do what I had to do to get by him.

“When I got to Bobby, got to the outside and he ran me up the fence, and I wasn’t too mad about it and kind of expected it. I got to his wheel and we touched but going into 3, I got to his inside, and I don’t think he knew I was there and he was running a diamond line … and we just met in the middle and that sent us both to the back.

“So all of it, just unfortunate because I know we had the best car here, and we could have challenge for the win tonight.”

Connor Zilisch was appreciative that he and Bobby McCarty could talk it out respectfully.

He explained his view of the ordeals with both Bobby Mac and Mini Tyrrell. pic.twitter.com/DeeclcJtkq

— Matt Weaver (@MattWeaverRA) April 21, 2024

For Crews, it was an especially rewarding win because he is best friends with Jesse Love, who also claimed his first NASCAR Xfinity Series win earlier in the day at Talladega Superspeedway.

Overall, it was just a chaotic day where countless contenders ran into problems and ultimately shuffled the running order of the championship with nine races to go in the season.

The CARS Late Model Stock season resumes May 3 at Ace Speedway.

1. Brent Crews
2. Kaden Honeycutt
3. Carson Kvapil
4. Connor Hall
5. Chase Burrow
6. Katie Hettinger
7. Ryan Millington
8. Timothy Peters
9. Layne Riggs
10. Treyten Lapcevich
11. Jacob Heafner
12. Andrew Grady
13. Brenden Queen
14. Camden Gullie
15. Connor Zilisch
16. Deac McCaskill
17. Clay Jones
18. Mini Tyrrell
19. Buddy Isles
20. Brandon Pierce
21. Connor Mosack
22. Chad McCumbee
23. Bryce Applegate
24. Bobby McCarty
25. Kade Brown
26. Ronnie Bassett Jr
27. Isabella Robusto
28. Mason Bailey
29. Landon Huffman
30. Logan Clark