
Conner Jones was good but also good to the last drop.
The No. 44 driver claimed his second career CARS Tour victory, but also his first since 2022 on Saturday night at Tri-County Motor Speedway.
The win came largely under convoluted circumstances as numerous frontrunners all ran out of fuel in the closing laps.
Mini Tyrrell had just taken the lead from Jones when he ran out of gas with 10 laps to go. Simultaneously, Ryan Millington ran out from sixth. On the next restart, Corey Heim stalled, presumably out of fuel, was tagged by Carson Kvapil behind him and it caused a stack-up.
At least a quarter of the field ran out of gas but not Jones, who was passed by Tyrrell, but otherwise drove to the lead after a spirited duel with Heim.
“I had enough gas to do three burnouts on the frontstretch,” Jones said.
All told, Jones really needed this one.
“We’ve had a rough, really bad year,” Jones said. “We should have had Ace won, but we didn’t do that. I knew coming into this weekend we had to win, because this is one of my best racetracks and I know it like the back of my hand. The car we unloaded was absolutely phenomenal.”
But what was up with the fuel issues? Andrew Grady ran out too.
“We ride around under caution, a lot of caution laps tonight,” Grady said. “And they know it’s not a secret, they know these cars don’t save fuel very well.”And then you got guys who are outta fuel lining up on a restart, knowing they’re out, knowing they have no fuel and going green, and then we’re wodding up a hundred thousand (dollars) worth of race cars. I don’t know, man. It truly aggravating.”
Bean takes Command
Brenden Queen also survived on fuel to finish third and take the CARS Tour points lead by eight markers over Connor Hall.
More on the day Hall had in a moment.
Queen had chances to press for the lead, gaps he didn’t take, but he was points racing.
“This is not how we wanted to perform, but at the end of the day, we just had to be smart and try to get the best finish we could,” Queen said. “Any other time, I could have tried to do something on the front row, but at that point, I was just trying to get it home. I hate points racing, but that’s what we got to do.”
He was points racing because he knew Hall was suffering through an awful race, qualifying 13th and running 15th most of the race.
Then he was involved in a crash and only finished 13th because of the fuel attrition.
“Qualifying in the middle of the pack isn’t unusual for me but we usually drive forward,” Hall said. “We just didn’t have any speed. But I guess, from a championship standpoint, we still have a shot at it. Anything can happen.”But even if he has a problem at North Wilkesboro, I don’t want to win in that way. That’s the biggest disappointment that we haven’t raced each other and whole lot this year. I have problems or he does and we’re trading them back and forth. It’s just disappointing.”Does Queen feel confident with an eight point lead?”No,” he said with a laugh. “The same thing could happen to us next week so we have to race it out all the way to the end. I’m not going to relax until Lap 125 and the championship is in the bag.”
- 44 Conner Jones
- 14 Jared Fryar
- 03 Brenden Queen
- 28 Landon S. Huffman
- 00 Chase Burrow
- 8 Carson Kvapil
- 2W Ryan Wilson
- 9 Charlie Watson
- 1 Andrew Grady
- 18 Max Reaves
- 24 Cody Dempster
- 77 Treyten Lapcevich
- 22 Connor Hall
- 11 Buddy Isles Jr.
- 81 Mini Tyrrell
- 15 Ryan Millington
- 71 Aaron Donnelly – OUT
- 55 Corey Heim – OUT
- 2 Brandon Pierce – OUT
- 04 Ronnie Bassett Jr. – OUT
- 62 William Sawalich – OUT
- 17 Brody Monahan – OUT
- 15C Kaden Honeycutt – OUT
- 08 Deac McCaskill – OUT
- 29 Brent Crews – OUT
- 7H Blayne Harrison – OUT
- 45 Parker Eatmon – OUT
- 7W Dylan Ward – OUT
- 23 Kade Brown – OUT
- 31 Andrew Patterson – OUT
Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.


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