Chaos in Orange County shuffles CARS championship picture

ROUGEMONT, NC – The fourth race of the 2025 zMAX CARS Tour campaign had major championship implications for several early-season contenders, and has catapulted new contenders into the picture.

Connor Hall entered the race with a 21-point lead over Mini Tyrrell after his win in Cordele.  Hall and Tyrrell were the only series regulars to win a race entering Saturday’s race in Rougemont, North Carolina.  Behind them, Kade Brown was 25 points behind Hall.

However, problems for both Hall and Tyrrell would upend the picture.  Hall struggled in qualifying, starting the race in 14^th before spinning on lap five.  He could never rebound from the early incidents and ended up finishing 18^th.

“I was under [Bollman] and I mean, I don’t really know what happened,” Hall said of the early incident.  “I thought I was pretty much as low as I could go and he just kept coming down, coming down and just kind of touched my right front tire with his left rear and it just spun me around really quickly.  That obviously took away all our track position and, once we were in the back, it’s just so hard to get up through the field here.  I messed up qualifying on my end so I hate that I put us in that hole and was never able to get us out of it.”

Hall is hopeful he can rebound when the series heads to Ace Speedway on May 3.

“I just want to show up and run well every week,” Hall stated.  “I missed it on my end.  I really hate it for making all the guys work that hard and not be able to deliver anything worthwhile.  I had a feeling I was going to be the weak link compared to the car this week.  I just needed to do better.  I think, when we come back next time, we will so I’m excited to go to Ace where the team and me have historically run well.”

Tyrrell, who won the second race of the season at Wake County Speedway in Raleigh, came into the race as Hall’s main championship rival.  His day, however, would also end on a sour note when he would get swept up in an accident on lap 84 with pole sitter Tyler Reif, ending his night with a 26^th place result.

“I’m not sure if I just made a mistake and got free and got into [Reif],” Tyrrell told Short Track Scene after the race.  “He was pinching me down a little bit which, I mean, he should.  I’m not blaming it on him.  The guy just got loose and once I feel like I got into him, I feel like I could get back off him and feel like I got him from behind because I got sideways.  It is what it is.  I overcorrected the car, probably should have just spun it out.  I feel terrible for my guys who work really hard and it sucks to make a mistake like that, especially when you’re trying to run for a championship.”

The two beneficiaries of the chaos were Kade Brown and Ronnie Bassett, Jr.

Based on Short Track Scene’s calculations, Brown should move into the second position in points, just nine markers behind Hall, as a result of his runner-up finish at Orange County – the best of his zMAX CARS Tour career.

“Winning the championship has been the goal all year,” Brown said.  “We’ve been fortunate to have good runs and we continue to work hard and try to come out on top at the end of the season.”

Brown’s goal is not just to win the championship, but to also win races.  However, his long run speed was not enough to overcome the deficit to race winner Jared Fryar.

“Jared fired off better,” Brown continued.  “I think we were pretty even there at the end.  I was just hoping some lapped cars would hold him up and we could race it out but he just had too big of a gap.  If we had a restart, it would have been a really good race.”

Ronnie Bassett, Jr. finished fifth, catapulting himself into title contention as, based on Short Track Scene’s calculations, he should be 21 points out of first place.

“You take an average night and turn it into something good like that, after bad luck two weeks ago in Cordele, it was nice just to come and have a solid night and qualify decent,” Bassett explained.  “We ran up outside the top-six all night and no more you can ask for.  The race car is not tore up and we can take it home and tune on it for once instead of a rebuild and get ready for Ace.”

Bassett’s goal, like the other contenders, is to win the series championship.

“It was the goal from the get-go,” Bassett stated.  “We had a solid run at New River, decent run at Wake County, and had a good run going in Cordele and, you know, mishap there toward the end of the race.  We just got to keep the solid top-five finishes going and we need to get to victory lane.  That will help a lot of stuff.”

The zMAX CARS Tour heads to Ace Speedway in Altamahaw, North Carolina on Saturday, May 3.