Doug Barnes Claims Biggest Win at Florence Icebreaker

Doug Barnes entered the Florence Icebreaker with a concrete game plan and never wavered from it.

Air Doug led every lap from the pole until Lap 88, at which point he let Matt Cox drive away to resume hitting his target lap time, eventually retaking the lead with minimal effort within 10 laps.

Barnes didn’t even force the issue.

“We have a lap time that we base everything off of here,” Barnes said. “We thought there would be a little more pressure around Lap 75 with the rain in the area and that’s about when Matt got me and passed me.

“I just figured if I could run the pace I wanted to run without pushing things too hard, I could maintain the lead or at least try to, and the pace was just super slow from where I thought it would be.

“Matt got me using a lap car as a pick, and I thought that would create a challenge to see how much rubber we used, but I realized once we got behind him that we hadn’t used much at all and we had a really good car.”

Barnes maintained the lead through two restarts and pressure from behind from Connor Hall and Kaden Honeycutt. Cox began to fade in the final laps and took the checkered flag in fifth.

Hall took second at the finish but was deemed light across the scales and was disqualified, allowing Honeycutt and Mason Diaz to claim podium finishes. Chad Bryant Racing and Hall just finished putting this car together overnight on Friday.

In fact, they just finished the toe on Saturday morning, the last-minute nature of the build perhaps contributing to oversights in technical inspection.

This was the first time Honeycutt drove for Mike Darne Racing and Jason Stanley, another car that was just recently completed in time for the Icebreaker, and the 15 laps of practice on Saturday morning was the first time the car had turned laps.

“I just needed to be looser in the center,” Honeycutt said. “Was chopping off the right front a little bit too much. But honestly, I found the top late, but they were so far gone, and I was just trying to defend Mason off.

“We did that, but with only 15 laps of practice, I’m so pleased with this finish.”

JR Motorsports had an uncharacteristic day where neither Carson Kvapil nor Dale Earnhardt Jr. could break into the top-10. Kvapil started there, in eighth, but immediately fell out of the top-10 and then top-15 before taking the checkered flag in 19th, one lap down.

Earnhardt wasn’t much better, getting as high as 10th, before getting trapped on the outside and falling back to 13th. That’s where he was running at the time of a stack-up that led to him spinning Brandon Pierce ahead of him.

“We practiced really good, were fast in practice and I don’t know, I thought I was saving enough riding 11th and when it came time to go, we didn’t have anything more to go with,” Earnhardt said.

“We were spinning the tires there off 4, rear drive went away completely, and was just doing everything I could make whatever lap time I could. Carson didn’t run good so both our cars didn’t run good. I don’t know what was wrong with the 8 — he said he wasn’t running well.”

Earnhardt and crew chief Josh Berry said they didn’t change much from the South Carolina 400 where both drivers were very competitive, and the track had just changed a lot. It’s losing more and more grip with every race.

“I had a blast driving these cars, and doing this more and more, I knew there would be a chance I would get my butt kicked several times and that’s part of it. If you want to come out here, you have to be willing to get humbled and we were humbled today.”

Does his first real adversity in a Late Model Stock make him hungrier to come back for his next start?

“No, not really because I’m hungry anyway,” Earnhardt said. “I want to come back and do this again. I love racing these cars, being in this environment and learning the people and drivers better. I love racing against some of the guys I raced in the 90s too.

“It was humbling today and it’s not always going to be your day. It shows you how good this series is, these cars and the competition.”

Diaz and South Carolina 400 winner Brenden Queen came from the back of the field following miscues in time trials to finish inside the top-five. Both felt they had race winning cars had they not put themselves behind in time trials.

As for Barnes, he called it the biggest win of his career, and given the field quality, the sentiment tracks.

“It’s a huge win,” Barnes said. “In fact, yeah, it’s the biggest win of my career so far. I’ve always said that I put us with any team out there. This is the first race of the season and we were right there with them. This is how I assume we should be every we go.

“I’m not shocked, but I am super pumped that we got the job done.”

It might even set the stage for what could be a NASCAR Weekly Series National Championship Run.

“We have a lot of left turns coming up this year,” Barnes said. “Some Dominion, Hickory. We want to go to South Boston and maybe some touring stuff at the end of the year.”

That’s a national championship schedule.

Icebreaker 125
Florence Motor Speedway
February 11 2023

1. Doug Barnes
2. Kaden Honeycutt
3. Mason Diaz
4. Matt Cox
5. Brenden Queen
6. Ryan Millington
7. Jacob Heafner
8. Jeb Burton
9. Zack Miracle
10. Sam Yarbrough
11. Brandon Pierce
12. Cody Kelley
13. Kade Brown
14. Lanie Buice
15. Connor Zilisch
16. Dale Earnhardt Jr
17. Justin Hicks
18. Carson Kvapil
19. Dexter Canipe Jr
20. Jaiden Reyna
21. Whitney Meggs
22. Casey Kelley
23. Anthony Adams
24. Bryant Barnhill
25. Kyle Plott
26. Josh Dickens
27. Mark Wertz
28. Jamie Weatherford
29. Connor Hall (DQ)

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