Rain washed out Saturday nights CARS Tour race at Caraway Speedway but when we finally went green on Sunday afternoon Landen Lewis led us to the green flag and led the field to the checkered flag but it’s never that easy.
Lewis led Chad McCumbee and Conner Jones though the early portion of the race until lap 23 when Matt Gould spun bringing out the first caution of the race. During the lane choice for the ensuing restart Lewis ran over the orange choose V leading to a penalty that would send the No. 29 from the lead to the rear of the field.
Lewis methodically worked his way through the field. He was up to third when Doug Barnes Jr. went up in smoke and flames with 35 laps to go. Conner Jones and Jared Fryar were on the front row for the restart. Jones and Lewis quickly moved past Fryar, the two then swapped the lead several times before Lewis muscled Jones out of the groove in Turn 3 and drove off to his first CARS Tour win of 2026.
“When I lost the lead off of four I immediately started replaying what happened last year to me,” said Lewis “I just kinda regrouped myself and just go back to what I needed to do and waited for him to make a mistake. He made a mistake, I capitalized on it and then pulled away so I think me maturing as a driver helped me win that race for sure and not beating the nose off of it, not beating the corners off of it. I think there’s not a scratch on it except the nose. Just a positive day.”
2025 was a breakout season for Landen Lewis, obviously, he won the championship but it also proved to be a learning experience for the young KHI driver. With the wins came some on-track incidents, often late in the going and at the front of the field. Lewis’ drive through the field today showed us the same speed from last year but a more polished display of race craft.
“Definitley in form today,” said Lewis “I gave me a lot of confidence obviously that I could still do this stuff. I was not losing confidence but I was getting frustrated. I like to win and that’s something that I enjoy doing with this group so I knew today that we had a really good car, just putting all the pieces together and I failed to do that by running over the choose cone.
“I knew that if I didn’t answer it back Kevin (Harvick) was probably going to be pretty upset and I was pretty upset at myself so I had to answer back and just pick the right lanes, pick the right timing and it all worked out.
While Lewis was fighting through the field Conner Jones fought off all challengers through a rash of yellows, building up a commanding lead until the final caution. The battle with Lewis was spirited but ultimately Jones felt he used his stuff up trying to stay out front.
The runner-up at Caraway marks Jones’ third straight top five finish, cementing him as a serious title contender through four races with Carroll Speed Shop.
“I’ve just tried to minimize damage as much as possible,” said Jones “Even when I was with Mike (Darne) and them, they all really preached to me, the more you bring the car back home one piece, the more we can work on it and make it faster – These Carroll Speed Shop guys really do bust their ass on this thing every week to make it fast.
Caden Kvapil drove from eleventh to third to keep his championship rival, Conner Jones honest and like Jones, he brought home his third top five finish of the season.
“We expected to have a really good race rum car,” said Kvapil “We really didn’t have it. I think a lot of it was because we were racing in the day, we were expecting to be at night time and obviously didn’t have it tight enough. From the start of the race I knew I was too free and I was Really worried about the end of it but we were just really good on restarts, gained a lot of spots on the outside, raced hard when I needed to and had a couple breaks on restarts trying to get down so a lot of it went our was just with we had a little more.
Kaden Honeycutt also had to battle back from the rear after London McKenzie missed a shift on the first restart damaging the No. 17 car. Honeycutt finished fourth and Dylan Fetcho scores his second straight top five finish in his second CARS Tour start.
CARS Tour Late Model Stock
Caraway Speedway
April 26, 2026
29 Landen Lewis
44 Conner Jones
88 Caden Kvapil
17 Kaden Honeycutt
89 Dylan Fetcho
14 Jared Fryar
77 Treyten Lapcevich
5 Carson Brown
95 London Mckenzie
16 Chad McCumbee
5 Chase Burrow
77 Landon S. Huffman
81 Mini Tyrrell
4 Parker Eatmon
51 Michael Bumgarner
57 Landon Huffman
7 Aiden King
16 Sam Butler
6 Brandon Lopez
2 Brandon Pierce
05 Mason Bailey
41 Mason Diaz
22 Carson Loftin
15 Jace Hale
04 Ronnie Bassett Jr.
98 Donovan Strauss
88 Doug Barnes Jr.
4 Matt Gould
71 Brian Blevins
99 Austin Somero
