Mini Tyrrell led every lap en route to winning the second CARS Late Model Stock Tour race of the season but that doesn’t mean it was uneventful.
Right from the start, there was an incident racing for the lead with Doug Barnes Jr. and while the Lee Pulliam Performance team rallied to third, they weren’t up front again to challenge Tyrrell. They might have been the two best teams on performance on Saturday.
As it was, Tyrrell led every lap and was ahead of the carnage that unfolded behind him, of which there was no shortage.
Recognizing that he owed Barnes as much, after his Victory Lane celebration, Tyrrell did initiate the conversation but it was a short one. Tyrrell did make wide arcs with driver to outside all night but he was also the leader.
“I know I got into Doug and I did walk over to apologize,” Tyrrell said. “I locked up the brakes and he told me I was using everyone up all night. This is a tight quarters race track. The restarts get tight and things happen and I wanted to get to the lead as quick as I can and get away from everyone.
“That’s what I did and now we’re in Victory Lane so it is what it is.”
For his part, Barnes was especially frustrated because Tyrrell’s wide arca knocked him out of the top-five and left his susceptible to being turned on Lap 69 by Kade Brown. He then had to drive all the way from the back to get a podium.
“He apologized and I told him I didn’t want an apology,” Barnes said of Tyrrell. “I felt like I gave him enough room. I got a good run down the back … and he used me up and before I get to 1, I’m about in the wall.
“It ruined our whole night and I say ruined because we don’t have a third place car, we had a winning car and the incident with Kade doesn’t happen. I tried to get back into (Tyrrell) on the last restart but had no tire left because I used it all coming back to the front. It was a good recovery, a good points night because we want to be contenders, but it sucks. Third is not what we’re here for.”
Barnes said he will ‘keep it in his memory bank,’ not that he plans to retaliate.
“I’m not going to throw away a race and I’m not interested in retaliation because I don’t drive like that but if roles are reversed, he and I both know what’s going to happen.”
While Barnes was busy driving back to the front, he got some help for those already in the top-5. Conner Jones spent most of the race behind Tyrrell but suffered a right front flat on Lap 114. On the next restart, Tristan McKee took the front row and spun off the nose of Holden Haddock.
On the next restart, Ryan Millington and Landon Huffman got to racing for second when they tangled and both were sent to the back. Millington left a lane and came down late but Huffman was sent to the back as a penalty.
“I don’t know if his spotter didn’t tell him I was there for a whole lap and got under him off 2,” Huffman said. “We were obviously a lot better than a lot of those cars there but they jump ahead of you through the choose deal up top …”
Millington conceded he may have chopped Huffman a little bit on exit.
“I started on the outside and I don’t want to talk any crap until I see a replay but I for sure chopped him, he was barely there,” Millington said. “It was one of those deals where both of us wanted the real estate and it’s unfortunate what happened.
“That’s part of racing I guess. He hasn’t came over here so I guess he ain’t too ticked off. We did not have the best car by no means but we put ourselves in position there for sure.”
Huffman feels like the penalty was unfair, albeit with a caveat.
“I’ve always talked about how well that rule has policed itself,” Huffman said. “I’ve been running the SMART Modified Tour and they have no rule in place. It’s all subjective. So in that case, it was unfair but that is a consistent rule that if you make contact, you go to the rear, and we were just the butt end this week.”
In addition to Barnes, Coastal Plains winner Connor Hall had an eventful day en route to his own podium finish.
“I saw the sky, I saw the billboard, the backstretch wall, the frontstretch wall,” Hall said. “I saw a lot …”
So he’s satisfied with a second place then?
“I would say so,” Hall said. “I thought we raced better than we practiced and qualified, which we expected but second was pretty good. I thought we were going to sneak a win in there for a second if I could hang on the outside of Mini but he was rotating too good and we were fighting snug.
“By time I got down, I would have needed to be a big bulldozer there to reach him.”
For his part, this is the earliest in a season that Tyrrell has won and it’s the second race in a row to open the season that he’s shown race winning pace.
“This gives the whole team confidence,” Tyrell said. “It shows the team that we can do this. We got hurt from that missed shift (by Aaron Donnelly) at New River and we still recovered from that. We still had a decent race and this shows how much speed we’re bringing into the season and how hard we’re working.”
CARS Tour Accent Imaging 125 Wake County Speedway March 29 2025
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.
