CARS Tour takeaways from Orange County weekend

The crumbling pavement at Orange County Speedway more or less survived the CARS Tour weekend but a handful of contenders did not make it through the racing unscathed.

As a result, it’s becoming a more or less a wide-open championship battle behind Connor Hall, who has been just short of perfect through the first four races of the season with a 3.25 average finish across Kenly, Hickory, Coastal and Roguemont.

The reigning NASCAR Weekly Series champion is still seeking his first victory of the season but has immediately looked the part of a champion in his first season behind the wheel of the iconic Nelson Motorsports No. 22.

Meanwhile, Brent Crews looked every bit the part of a emerging top prospect, in winning for the first time in CARS Tour competition on Saturday to add to a pavement resume that also includes quick wins and a World Series of Asphalt Super Late Model championship.

Kevin Harvick Inc. has a future Sunday driver in their ranks.

But man, a lot of the crashing on Saturday night, combined with Carson Kvapil missing a race to make his Xfinity Series debut has left a very thin spread from second on back. First, glance at the updated standings:

1. Connor Hall
2. Brent Crews -15
3. Mini Tyrrell -19
4. Treyten Lapcevich -21
5. Bobby McCarty -22
6. Carson Kvapil -28
7. Brenden Queen -29
8. Ryan Millington -32
9. Chad McCumbee -40
10. Jacob Heafner -47

That’s pretty close with nine races remaining for the most robust full-time roster in the decade long history of the CARS Late Model Stock Tour.

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

McCarty, already a three-time champion from his tenure at Nelson Motorsports, has returned to form in his second year driving for R&S Race Cars and looks the part too, which made his run-in with Connor Zilisch all the more frustrating for him.

The same goes for Mini Tyrrell, who had found the missing consistency from his young career to add to his already present upside, before also having a run-in with Zilisch in the closing laps.

The stakes are just really high for both when running against Hall, and knowing that missing a race didn’t stop Kvapil and JR Motorsports from winning a championship together in 2022, so they still need to be perfect and felt like they were denied for something not of their making.

And that’s not a slight at Zilisch either, who is part-time this season for Performance Racing Group, and while racing the contenders pretty hard, he was also defended really hard by them too.

Listen, this is the CARS Tour, where everyone is really good and no one is giving an inch.

In hindsight, McCarty and Tyrrell would probably want those laps back, take the podium or top-5 but again, that wouldn’t be the CARS Tour would it?

It was nice to see where all involved could talk it out in the hauler as opposed to a escalating argument and confrontation, no matter how much the latter would be good for business at Short Track Scene. But on a human level, its rewarding to see three men sort it out just like that.

This is also a testament to series founder, Jack McNelly, which even before the sale to the NASCAR luminaries always fostered an environment of respect and punished pretty heavily with suspensions any sort of fighting.

From that standpoint, Saturday featured the best of the CARS Tour in that the racing was hard but the racers sorted it out like adults afterwards.

And now, this championship battle is going to really take off.

“The old girl held up well didn’t she,” Brandon Pierce said of the pavement as we crossed paths after the race on Saturday.

Maybe.

Here’s hoping this is the last year of racing at Orange County without the pavement getting addressed in some way or form.

The track did not directly lead to any DNFs, unlike Tri-County’s CARS Tour race in 2017, but there were a handful of issues on both sides of the catchfence over the weekend. For one, Jimmy Renfrew sent over this picture of damage to the nose and foot box cover.

There was also this.

Snagged my oil pan today but we still drinking cold beer at the hotel and gonna send it tomorrow https://t.co/o9WkS4Y3dl

— Landon Huffman (@LandonHuffman) April 20, 2024

And this.

In the 08 ductwork during tear down. pic.twitter.com/IIiBoGPea0

— R & S Race Cars (@RandSRaceCars) April 25, 2024

To some degree, the racers signed up for this, and while CARS Tour probably shouldn’t race on a surface like this anymore, fans did not sign up to get pelted by asphalt chunks, which is what happened on Saturday.

A reader, who won’t be named unless the track or series wants to follow up and address it privately, sent along a photo of a piece of pavement that was projected into the stands and hit her young son.

–

From the mother:

“There’s two deep cuts and scrap(e)s this morning(.) It’s got a lump and he’s very sore(.) His name is (redacted) you are more than welcome to use these photos as no one from the track even came out to check how he was it was. Safety doesn’t seem to be there concern.”

Again, racers sign up for the risk that their car could be torn up from the actions of their rivals or even the track coming apart but fans should not be subjected to projectile pavement chunks that could really harm someone depending where it hits.

Here’s to Orange County at least addressing sections of the track, one at a time, like Five Flags Speedway did with its frontstretch and entry into Turn 1.

Landon Huffman makes early season chassis switch

There was a lot of hurt and frustration in what Landon Huffman said immediately after crashing out of the race on Saturday, just a handful of laps into the race, where he broke a hub and collided with Logan Clark of R&S Race Cars.

Huffman went to let R&S Race Cars co-owner and crew chief Marcus Richmond know what happened, and according to the driver, was told something to the effect of there is always an excuse and something breaking.

The broadcast caught up with Huffman, who said this:

“I was just walking down there to tell Marcus that the right front hub broke,” he said. “Obviously, I’m not just going to turn right. I’ve been fighting something all weekend that thing … We unloaded and were fighting something, and three laps in, the right front hub breaks.

“I go down there to tell him, and he says ‘its always something breaking with you,’ which if everybody knows, we’ve been having issues with (our R&S car) and I guess I’m just a dumb Claremont (North Carolina) idiot, I guess, who can’t make no race cars run so I guess I just need to take that R&S car back to South Boston and drop that sumbitch off at the front porch and tell him that I’m done.”

pic.twitter.com/F2KAJac61F

— Stephen (@SWE122485) April 21, 2024

One, I appreciate any use of ‘sumbitch’ in a racing interview. It adds a lot of character. It’s good for business.

But some backstory.

After his exit from Nelson Motorsports last year, the tour’s most popular driver joined Jimmy Mooring Racing who invested in a new R&S Race Car chassis for them to use.

From the moment they first unloaded at Southern National for the season opener, they just could not get the car to work. They failed to qualify into the race, immediately eliminating them from the championship, and leaving them confused.

They have taken the car to Hickory for a weekly show and were not competitive. They were not good at Hickory or Coastal either. So they took Huffman’s personal PRW car to OCS instead of the R&S car, and then that car breaks a right front hub.

Good lord.

The R&S chassis is fundamentally different than all the other chassis on the market. It has a much different geometry than its contemporaries. It also requires different equipment to adjust it and Jimmy Mooring Racing nor Huffman has those components.

They’ve taken the car to R&S Chassis at South Boston so Richmond could look it over and Huffman just hasn’t felt like the manufacturer has really pointed them in the right direction.

And Richmond said over the weekend that the buy-in from Mooring and Huffman isn’t quite there to do what it takes to fine-tune their car either.

When we had our hands on it, a lot of things were still not right,” Richmond said. “With their situation and how much we have going on, that car just needs a lot of attention. Unfortunately, Landon and them don’t 100 percent understand exactly how we do things, which is definitely different than everyone else, in how we set up our cars.

“It’s just different than what they have been working with and our numbers have to be right to make the car run. But once they get it, they are going to be just fine, but we have to get those things right. I see issues with the numbers and stuff that I know isn’t where it needs to be. Hopefully, Kendall Sellers and them have done an amazing job with their program and I think they can all work together and get it going in the right direction.”

That quote did not particularly sit right with Huffman, which led to his frustrated outburst on the broadcast after their crash.

Huffman is going to take his R&S car to Ace to test with Kendall Sellers, who manages Mooring’s other car, so the hope is that he can jump in and out of both cars to troubleshoot what the issue might be with his CARS Tour entry.

All told, Huffman and Richmond are good dudes, fierce competitors, and their wires are just crossed right now as the former is trying to learn a new car without all the tools at his disposal. At the same time, Richmond has his hands full with clients and the house team too.

It’s just a reflection of how tough the competition is on the tour right now.

They’ll get it figured out.