CARS Tour Leftovers: Hickory Throwback Classic

While a case of calamity syndrome swept through the Pro Late Model field in this past Saturday’s CARS Tour Throwback Classic at Hickory, the Late Model Stock Cars by comparison seemed to only experience a mild case. Both races were extremely chaotic and both races were packed full of excitement and drama, providing many additional storylines beyond their finishes.

Let’s take a look at things you may have missed from Hickory.

Honeycutt narrows the gap in the Pros

The battle at the top of the CARS Tour Pro Late Model points standings is truly heating up. Coming out of Hickory, the gap between first place Mason Walters and second place Kaden Honeycutt now sits at one point. Both drivers had to overcome the chaos of the lap one melee.

Honeycutt, starting ninth, was saved from the massive damage others incurred in that lap one crash, though he did not come out unscathed. He spent significant time on pit road during several caution periods as the JC Motorsports crew affected repairs to his car’s handling — Honeycutt’s radio traffic said that the biggest issue was a tight condition and the steering tow. Late in the race, Honeycutt found himself in the fray for a top five finish, and even challenged for a podium spot before finishing in fourth. With that result, Honeycutt cut the gap between he and leader Walters to just one point.

Mason Walters was not as lucky as Honeycutt as the field barreled into turn one on lap one. His Setzer Racing machine suffered severe damage and required a lot attention from the pit crew in order to continue. Walters’ car looked more like a modified than a late model after repairs, however, he was able to continue and complete. The performance of his car was basically shot, yet Walters avoided picking up a “Did Not Finish” and was able to limp home to a respectable 15th place result. 

Oh fuel, where art thou?

Generally speaking, fuel should not be a concern during a typical late model race. However, at Hickory, the field experienced an atypical scenario — two caution-filled features that saw more laps led by the pace car than the actual race leader. Okay, that’s an overreach, but to many it sure felt that way.

In actuality, there were 11 cautions for 77 laps in the Late Model Stock Car feature and eight cautions for 79 laps for the Pro Late Models. That’s 156 total laps run behind the pace car. In this case, fuel indeed became a concern.

As a result, we witnessed something never before seen in CARS Tour competition. Both features included a controlled fuel stop to prevent cars from running out of fuel while on track.

This comes as part of a concerted effort by race officials to prevent the kind a situation that was seen earlier this year at Wake County Speedway. There, in another race plagued by cautions, cars began running out to fuel on track and the resulted in a bit of a roulette of uncertainty on who would have enough fuel to finish.

After that event, Series Direction Kip Childress told Short Track SCENE that measures would be put in place to help prevent such occurrences in the future.

“If we get into a situation, and it’s up to us to identify this, where have an abnormally large amount of cautions, the we want to make the call early to go ahead and recognize that a fuel stop needs to be made and take that element out of the equation,’ said Childress.

Rubbin’ son, is racin’ 

Another interesting tidbit from Hickory associated with the circumstances of the night came from Pro Late Model driver Case James. On his social media, James mentioned an odd observation. The Pro Late Model race last for 109 minutes. The 100 lap Pro Late Model feature took longer to complete than the full feature-length runtime of the film, “Days of Thunder,” which runs for 107 minutes.

The longer, 125 lap, Late Model Stock Car feature ran just a bit shorter of the blockbuster film, completing the race in approximately 103 minutes.

This is yet another wrinkle to was a very long day. Blistering heat in the middle of the day was broken by severe thunderstorms blowing over the speedway after qualifying. Following a lengthy track drying period, races still managed to begin only slightly delayed from the advertised start time. Racing concluded close to 2:30 AM, marking one of the longest racedays of the year thus far.

Modified madness

I want to take one final look at the carnage from the Throwback Classic to appreciate the madness of having to finish a race without the majority of the body work on a car. When you see stock car style racecars on track that instead look like modifieds, you know something big happened.

Following the lap one “party” in turn one, several teams found themselves thrashing to get their cars back on track. Keelan Harvick led the modified charge, running highly competitive lap times and racing solidly inside the top ten all night, finishing seventh. Luke Baldwin was a few spot further back, finishing 10th behind the wheel of his modified Bryson-Lopez Racing No. 47. Finally, Mason Walters finished 15th, worst of the drivers in this subset, but performed well enough to hold on to his points lead by the slimmest of margins; one point over Kaden Honeycutt.

In the Late Model Stock feature, Parker Eatmon raced the majority of that race without the driver’s side on the car. His damage came after a big incident with Chase Burrow and Carson Loftin sparked a stack up behind them, resulting in Jake Bollman ending up on top of the drive’s side of Eatmon, with Matt Leicht pinned to the inside wall. Eatmon climbed back in the car once it was towed to pit road, and somehow completed the race with a 15th place finish.

Double first timers

Wins for TJ DeCaire in the Pro Late Model feature and Matt Gould in the Late Model Stock feature were extra special on this particular race night as they were both first time winners in the CARS Tour.

DeCarie, featuring a throwback paint scheme from crew chief Mike Garvey’s ASA racing days, won the pole position for the Pro Late Model race, the second of his CARS Tour career. In the race, DeCaire put on a clinic, besting the second place car nine times on the start and restarts over the course of the 100 lap race en route to taking the win — and leading every lap. This was just DeCaire’s second start of the season with Low Country Motorsports. The victory marked the very first career win for AJ Frank and Mikey Kile as car owners. It’s also a full circle moment for team co-owner Frank, who won his first CARS Tour race as a driver at Hickory nearly 15 years prior. 

Starting 12th in the 125-lap feature, Gould avoided multiple high-profile crashes that eliminated top-tier contenders. On a late-race restart, a power move on the outside stuck and he was able to pass Treyten Lapcevich for the lead and then cruised to a victory of more than two seconds over second. Gould’s No. 4 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet was crew chiefed by his father, Phil Gould, and prepared by eight-time CARS Tour race winner Connor Hall. It was Gould’s fifth career start on the Tour.

The Midfielders

This week’s mid-field finishers are Jeff Batten in the Pro Late Models and Helio Meza in Late Model Stocks.

Batten spent the night navigating the highly chaotic, calamity-filled 100-lap Pro Late Model feature. Somehow, he managed to keep his car in one piece through the heavy attrition to cross the finish line just outside the top 10 in 12th place.

Meza overcame late-race damage and a spin to secure a 13th-place finish in the Late Model Stock Car feature. This earned him the Rookie of the Race Award. Driving the No. 7 Matt Piercy Racing Chevrolet, Meza captured his first career top-10 starting position in just his third series appearance.