Someway, somehow, if Carson Kvapil could only get clean air, he was convinced he would drive the JR Motorsports No. 8 away from the field.
It took several restarts, head-to-head with Brenden Queen, but the defending champion finally took the lead during the final restart with 10 laps to go and indeed drove away to the tune of a 1.26 second victory in the CARS Tour race at Florence Motor Speedway.
The win was especially rewarding for Kvapil because it came just over a month after he and Dale Earnhardt Jr. got humbled in the Low Country during the Icebreaker. JR Motorsports was well off the pace in that event and it worried Kvapil that they faced long odds this weekend.
“I was pretty nervous going into this race given that this was a points race, going off our performance in the Icebreaker,” Kvapil said. “Fortunately, we finished second at Southern National (in the opener) and that boosted all of our confidence that we would have a good car.
“So, to come back here and win, that was pretty awesome.”
Kvapil struggled in dirty air behind the leading Queen in the middle laps what became the third stage due to two consecutive competition cautions after 40 consecutive green flag laps. That gave Kvapil two choices, take the non-preferred inside lane on the restart or follow Queen on the outside and drive away from those behind.
He chose the front row for a restart with 12 laps to go, but it wasn’t so straightforward, as Queen took the field down really slow and spun his tires on throttle. It bottled the field up and caused a crash near the back of the field.
Race control took exception to what looked like gamesmanship up front, and Queen responded with a more traditional restart, one that Kvapil took advantage of — taking the lead and leaving Queen to fend off Ronnie Bassett Jr. who had driven up from the 20th starting position.
Bassett turned Queen almost sideways in front of the field, but let him save it, and were then hoping for a caution that never came to have a shot at Kvapil.
First, what happened to Queen on the restarts as the control car?
“You get really free under someone late in the race, and that’s what I took the top leading because I thought I would have a better shot at first or second, and if I chose the bottom, I was so free, that I would have hit the 8 and there’s no point in that,” Queen said. “I feel like I gave it my best shot. I wish that caution wouldn’t have come out, I was holding him at bay even though I thought I was faster, but was going to make him work for it.”
And the super slow restart?
“That was honestly a mistake on my part,” Queen said. “He started slowing up and I slowed up with him. I’m the control car and I shouldn’t have done that. That was my fault and luckily I got a redo and I didn’t spin my tire, but I feel like he fired before me still, but enough to keep us even to hit me on the door in (Turn) 1 and that won him the race, really because then I had to fight for second.”
Queen congratulated Kvapil in Victory Lane and apologized for his part on the sloppy restart. He also shared a couple of laughs about the hard racing with Bassett racing for second.
For Bassett, it was a return to Late Model form for one of the most dominant drivers of the region who hasn’t been in this discipline for almost a decade following stints in ARCA East and the Xfinity Series. This third place run, being this competitive again, is exactly why the former UARA and NASCAR Weekly Series race winner returned to short track racing.
“I wish we would have qualified better, not put ourselves in a early hole but we’re getting readjusted to Late Model racing,” Bassett said. “Guys gave me a good car and it was interesting running two-by-two saving tires like that.”
All told, those last restarts was something Kvapil had to work for to earn his first win of the season. He has now opened his championship defense with a second and first.
“I’ll start before the last restart, the last 40 laps or so, that whole run,” Kvapil said. “We were just better than him but couldn’t get the run I was looking for. We were both tight, him more than me, and I thought with those restarts, it was going to hurt us.
“He slowed the pace down a bunch on that one restart, he spun the tires and I hooked it up pretty well, but they called that one back. That last restart was more normal, and we got a good run on him, he held me tight and I got a little loose.
“He’s going to be a strong one this season and I’m really looking forward to racing it out with those guys this season.”
CARS Tour Aarons 125
Florence Motor Speedway
March 24 2023
- Carson Kvapil
- Brenden Queen
- Ronnie Bassett Jr.
- Conner Jones
- Jacob Heafner
- Mini Tyrrell
- Bobby McCarty
- Ryan Glenski
- Cody Kelley
- Bryant Barnhill
- Chad McCumbee
- Jared Fryar
- Connor Hall
- Zack Miracle
- Carson Brown
- Brandon Pierce
- Deac McCaskill
- Dylon Wilson
- Lanie Buice
- Joshua Dickens
- Landon Pembelton
- Andrew Grady
- Tate Fogleman
- Cale Gale
- Chase Burrow
- Blake Lothian
- Ryan Millington
- Cameron Bolin
- Isabella Robusto
- Ryan Wilson
- Jason Kitzmiller
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