What race rust?

Matt McCall has been fastest in both practice session for the Thanksgiving Classic Late Model Stock race at Southern National Motorsports Park. On Saturday morning, he posted a 15.594 around the .4-mile track located in North Carolina.

The full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series crew chief for Jamie McMurray is making his annual off-season one-off return to Late Model Stock racing and seemingly hasn’t lost a step. He finished third in this race a year ago to Tommy Lemons Jr. and Brenden Queen.

“With the tire falloff here, it will be interesting to see what the race pace is like on Sunday,” McCall said. “We’ve tried to stay up on all the changes to the Late Model Stocks this year. We just need to get our long run speed right and be there at the end.”

Payton Sellers, Philip Morris, Mason Diaz and Queen completed the top-5.

There is one more practice session before qualifying.

Of the 40 cars on-site, 32 will start the 200-lap on Sunday. The top-15 in Saturday qualifying will be automatically locked into the main event. Rusty Daniels is also guaranteed a spot by virtue of his Eastern Carolina Late Model Mania championship.

The remaining qualifiers will race it out for the final 16 or 17 spots (depending on where Daniels qualifies) in a last chance race to determine the starting line-up for the Thanksgiving Classic itself.

Final practice times can be viewed below. Keep in mind that the track has dealt with Race Monitor issues and times are not official.

1. Matt McCall 15.594
2. Peyton Sellers 15.600
3. Philip Morris 15.610
4. Mason Diaz 15.686
5. Brenden Queen 15.711
6. Mike Darne 15.714
7. Ronald Renfrow 15.734
8. Trevor Noles 15.750
9. Mark Wertz 15.779
10. Bobby McCarty 15.779
11. Stacy Puryear 15.802
12. Justen Johnson 15.802
13. Charlie Watson 15.824
14. Alex Brock 15.847
15. Terry Carroll 15.849
16. Colin Garrett 15.887
17. Sam Mayer 15.913
18. Cameron Bowen 15.940
19. Jonathan Findley 15.960
20. Thad Moffitt 16.009
21. N/A 16.045
22. Ryan Haddock 16.135
23. Nolan Pope 16.142
24. Mike Ganoe 16.174
25. Justin Carroll 16.220
26. Lee Pulliam 16.235
27. Juan Conzalez 16.302
28. Rodney Boyd 16.354

Read more Short Track Scene:

• Thanksgiving Classic Schedule
• Thanksgiving Classic Late Model Stock Entry List
• Here’s why Chase Elliott and Erik Jones will not race the Derby

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