As the CARS Tour rolls into Florence this Friday night, the fight for the Late Model Stock championship has heated up with only four races left in the season.
Connor Hall joined forces with JR Motorsports for this year, and came out of the gate strong, winning two of the first three races. However, he has yet to get back to victory lane since his win at Cordele in April. Despite that, he still leads the points over Kevin Harvick Inc.’s Landen Lewis.
Lewis is just four points behind Hall and has been on fire as of late. In just his first full-time season, he earned back-to-back wins at Ace and North Wilkesboro speedway, as well as winning last time out at Anderson. Lewis’ three wins on the season ties him with Mini Tyrrell for the most wins on the year.
Tyrrell is currently fourth in the points, 28 behind Hall. He picked up the biggest win of his career earlier this year at Hickory, earning $50,000 for winning the Throwback Classic just a few weeks ago. He also picked up the win at his home track of Dominion this year, as well as winning at Wake County.
Kade Brown and Landon Huffman have yet to notch a win this year, but both are still in the title fight. Brown sits third in points, 17 back of Hall, with Huffman in fifth, 33 points behind.
The intensity has been upped heading into Florence and all the drivers believe they need to deliver wins in the last four races.
Short Track scene caught up with the top five in the championship following Thursday practice at Florence, here is what they had to say.
Connor Hall
“I feel good,” Hall said. “We were really, really strong today. We brought a really good race car. I feel really good going into tomorrow and the last couple of races. I’m not really thinking about the points. If you go sit on the pole and win the race, the points will take care of themselves.”
Something that may prove advantageous to Hall is the fact that team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back with the CARS Tour for his second race in a row. Earnhardt is coming off a top 10 at Anderson, and Hall says that having him run races helps elevate the whole team.
“He is really good at diagnosing what a race car is doing and what it needs,” Hall said. “That obviously parlays onto what we do on the 88 as well as the 8. It’s always a big help when he runs as much as possible. He is such a veteran. It gives us another set of hands and eyes on it.”
Landen Lewis
Lewis shared the same sentiments as Hall, saying he also is focusing on getting more wins and continuing to improve for the last few races.
“Obviously I feel good about it,” Lewis said. “We’ve had speed the last couple of weeks, honestly the last couple of months. We’ve had really solid runs and the cars have been good. Today we fought a little bit of everything, but we’ve got a good game plan.
“Every [race] we’ve gotten better and gotten faster and I think that’s me getting more comfortable in the cars [and] having the direction of what I need in the car for the race. I think Ace was really our turning point of my confidence and my feel for the race car.”
Kade Brown
Even though Brown appreciates being so close in the title fight, he is more focused and getting his first career win this year.
“I feel really good,” Brown said. “We made some really good changes all day. We had a little bit different approach today and didn’t know how it was going to go, but man, I’m really, really happy with how it ended. I think we have a ton of speed.
“We’re not stressing [the points]. We’re going to run each race the best we can no matter what. The points will play out however they do. Obviously we’re going for a championship. That would be great. That’s what we’re here for.”
Mini Tyrrell
Despite a roller coaster of a season, Tyrrell is still in the title picture and is keeping the momentum from his $50,000 win at Hickory.
“It’s super cool,” Tyrrell said. “We ended the season last year in third, so we’re trying to better that this year and maybe fight for second, or possibly the title. The guys at TTR brought me a great race car. They work their butts off every week. We’ll just keep on digging and trying to get faster and try to win this one tomorrow.
“[Hickory] was a huge win for our team. It’s helped us get to the race track for the rest of the year. It definitely would be cool to try to get another win or two to close the year out. The next three races after [Florence] are all high grip places that I tend to take a liking to. If we come away with the most wins, great. If someone would have said to me I would have three wins already this year, I would have been more than delighted to hear that.”
Landon Huffman
Even though Huffman is still chasing his first win since joining Carroll Speedshop last year, they have shown race winning speed, and he believes they just need one more piece to score a win this year.
“[Florence] is not my favorite race track,” Huffman said. “I’ve made that known before. I don’t normally get around this place too hot, but we’ve got a really fast No. 57. We were top of the charts for the first part of practice today. I think we have a top five car.
“I definitely want to win races. That’s the ultimate goal anytime you come to a race track. I think we’ve had race winning speed in our 57 at the end of these races. I know we’ve got the race cars to do it. We’ve just got to qualify better and put ourselves in position so I don’t have to pass 100 cars.”
With how tight the championship fight is, plus Dale Earnhardt Jr. racing, Florence is shaping up to be an important race on the season.
FloRacing will stream the race live on Friday, August 29, with qualifying beginning at 5 p.m. ET and racing beginning with the Pro Late Model’s 100 lap race at 7:45 p.m. ET, with the Late Model Stock’s taking the green for their 125-lap race at approximately 9 p.m. ET.
