Right place, right time for Jared Fryar in CARS Tour Caraway

Jared Fryar found himself in the right place at the right time but largely placed himself there too on the way to his second consecutive CARS Tour victory at Caraway Speedway on Wednesday.

Fryar was largely a top-five driver throughout the race but that proved to be good enough when leaders Landen Lewis and Mini Tyrell crashed from the front row during a Lap 106 restart. That incident also collected front-runner Landon Huffman and pole-sitter Trevor Ward.

The crash also derailed the chances for Lewis, Tyrrell and Huffman to make championship gains during an awful race for points leader Connor Hall.

Instead, none of them were around for the finish — and all Fryar had to do was fend off Kaden Honeycutt to score his sixth career victory.

“It was just being in the right position,” Fryar said. “We didn’t have the best car. We ran around third all night, second a little bit. I didn’t quite have enough long run speed, burned it up a little bit, and (Lewis and Tyrrell) were better than me.

“But I wasn’t real surprised that happened. There was some contact earlier in the race that was aggressive and not really needed. It kind of backfired on them there. (Tyrrell) ran him really hard down there. But at the end of the day, there’s less than 30 laps to go and we’re racing for the win. It happens.

“I was just in the right place at the right time.”

The backdrop to all of this is that Hall entered this race with just a six-point lead over Lewis. Tyrrell was 35 points back and Huffman, 38. Hall was having a dreadful race. The JR Motorsports driver qualified near the back and was struggling to even race inside the top-15.

Instead, Hall had the best finish of all of the with what turned into a 12th place run.  

On the decisive restart, Lewis of Kevin Harvick Inc. and Tyrrell driving his family owned car, drove into Turn 1 and made contact on corner exit. Their fenders hooked together and jerked them both into the outside retaining wall.

Huffman had nowhere to go and was unusually hooked by the Lewis fender into the wall as well.

It was Huffman that was the most frustrated by the entire ordeal. He started 10th, methodically worked his way through the top-10, and was once again raptured by a crash not of his making.

After climbing out of the car, Huffman wanted an audience with Lewis, who had immediately retreated to the KHI hauler to change out. Huffman and Kevin Harvick exchanged words on what the point of a conversation would be while also fundamentally disagreeing on what happened.

Huffman left before Lewis returned.

“I mean, it’s the same thing every week,” Huffman said. “I feel like it’s frustrating, man. Best car on the racetrack. … Driving through the field. I mean, obviously it’s different when you’re up front but I drove up front tonight and was killing them and was going to have a shot at winning — and lo and behold — a CARS Tour restart.

“From my opinion, it looked like (Lewis) got beat on the restart and drove into Mini’s left rear. I don’t know if Mini chopped down or not. In my opinion, it was the 29’s fault (Lewis) from on board but I haven’t watched it back yet.

“I’m just tired of the fucking bullshit man. I’m tired of the, and sorry for my language, but we’re working too hard and fighting for everything.”

It’s been that kind of season for Huffman with Carroll Speedshop.

“We’re out here trying to build a program and I feel like we’ve done an excellent job preparing race cars and I’ve put us in a hole in qualifying. I did a respectable job tonight and drove to the front like I knew we would and then just some dumb ass shit on the restart from the 29, who is supposed to be racing for a championship.

“So as far as I’m concerned, if I don’t have a shot at it, I hope Mini has the upper hand come North Wilkesboro.”

Tyrrell was much more composed and even-keeled given he had led the most laps of a race again this season but didn’t take this one to Victory Lane while also getting monster-trucked on corner exit.

“I mean, he got the lead from me and had a better car on the longer runs that I did,” Tyrrell said. “But I had a really good short run car when the tires would cool down. We were just too loose in the long runs and didn’t feel like we had enough practice today to figure that out.

“He was the control car on the first restart and sped up out of the center of the corner and slammed on brakes and did it again. So he beat me and got into my door in (Turn) 1, which, shoot, I expected him to do that racing for the lead.

“Next restart, did the same thing but I caught it and knew what he was going to do and took the lead from him into 1. I had the nose pinched on him a little bit, not aggressive, didn’t drive him onto the apron or nothing. In fact, Rodney (Childers) came over to me and said they got tight and apologized, and once we touched wheels, I couldn’t give off him.”

Tyrrell wasn’t furious and said he and Lewis are friends, but just wishes they had been given room to race it out because the KHI car was probably going to win no matter what.

“I’m not going to bad-mouth Landen,” Tyrrell said. “He’s a good kid, dude works hard on their cars and is a good race car driver too. He works hard and had a bright future. I like everyone at the Harvick organization. I’m just chalking this one up as a racing incident.”

That’s how Lewis felt after changing clothes and addressing it too, albeit admitting he hadn’t seen the in-car or replays yet.

“It was just a racing incident,” Lewis said. “Me and Mini got together the restart before that. It almost happened again and I guess it was bound to happen at some point. This just sucks. It’s a little bit on both sides. I feel a little bit of my fault, a little bit of his. … It just sucks to have that good of a race car and it doesn’t work out.

“But that’s how it is and they all don’t work out your way.”

Lewis said he just didn’t want to get into the details of what happened because he would be speaking out of turn without having re-watched it.

“To be honest with you, I don’t really know,” Lewis said. “I need to go back and look at the replay and be a better judge on it before I say something here I don’t need to say and bash someone I shouldn’t.”

Meanwhile, Lewis, Tyrrell and Huffman all let Hall off the championship hook. Hall leaves the track with his championship lead intact. This likely all but eliminates Huffman and Lewis and is now a Hall, Kade Brown and Lewis battle.

CARS LMSC Tour Firecracker 125
Caraway Speedway
July 2 2025

1. 14 Jared Fryar
2. 17 Kaden Honeycutt
3. 7 Tristan McKee
4. 04 Ronnie Bassett Jr.
5. 88B Doug Barnes Jr.
6. 00 Chase Burrow
7. 4S Donovan Strauss
8. 4 Kade Brown
9. 22 Carson Loftin
10. 12W Brandon Ward
11. 16 Chad McCumbee
12. 88 Connor Hall
13. 29 Landen Lewis
14. 2W Ryan Wilson
15. 7W Dylan Ward
16. 71 Parker Eatmon
17. 1 Andrew Grady
18. 03 Lanie Buice
19. 2 Brandon Pierce
20. 57 Landon Huffman -1
21. 12 Trevor Ward -2
22. 66 Zack Wells -2
23. 44 Conner Jones -5
24. 81 Mini Tyrrell – OUT
25. 18 Max Reaves – OUT
26. 15 Grant Davidson – OUT