Cayden Lapcevich played Playoff spoiler in the SMART Modified Tour at Orange County.
The Rumble In Rougemont was the first of three Playoff races for the SMART Tour, and also served as a wildcard round. With the race at Tri-County rained out two weeks ago, which was supposed to decide the Playoff field, officials made a rule change that made it so that the drivers sixth to tenth in the points who missed the cutoff could win tonight, they would be added to the Playoffs.
Carter McMurray and Jack Baldwin were in the thick of it for the last half of the race, battling for second as Lapcevich led. McMurray was able to clear Baldwin to take second late in the race, but was unable to run down a dominant Lapcevich, who led nearly every lap en route to his first career SMART Modified Tour win and picked up a championship belt as the trophy.
“No, I haven’t (won a belt as a trophy),” Lapcevich said in victory lane on FloRacing. “I hope this ain’t the last one. But man, it’s a really good race car right there. Wes, Justin, my dad, my brothers, we work our ass off. And it’s been a time trying to get this right. And my brother came to me with an idea this morning before we got here, and he said, ‘we got to try it.’ And we tried it, and it worked. They brought this car to life. So huge thank you to them. Everybody at PRF linked up. Everybody that lends a hand in this program. I can’t do it without everybody.”
His younger brother, Treyton, who races full-time in the CARS Tour was his spotter tonight, and Cayden gives him a lot of credit for the win.
“Treyton did a really good job of keeping me updated on gaps. And if I kept ten (car lengths), I felt happy and safe. So I managed that ten. And I was just trying to be easy getting into lap traffic there, because I didn’t see them racing and didn’t want to get carried into it. So Teyton did a great job. He kept me in clean air. And what a night.”
Cayden’s day job is working with Halmar Friesen Racing’s No. 62 NASCAR Truck Series entry, so his racing schedule has been limited this year, but he will have a few more starts with the SMART Modifieds this year.
“I’ll be at Tri-County. And then I can’t make North Wilkesboro, because I think we’re in Talladega or something like that. But we’re going to Tri-County.”
McMurray came up just short of winning his way into the Playoffs, but was still happy with his night, and how his young Modified career has been going thus far.
“Disappointment,” McMurray said on FloRacing when asked what he is feeling after finishing second.” But at the same time happiness. I gave it everything I had. I got held up a little bit trying to get by Jack, and I kind of let Cayden get away. But it doesn’t sum up how well our season was. Sophomore season was a lot better than last year. We had a really good season, and it sucks not being able to capture the win tonight. But, man, it was really fun trying to track Cayden down, and we’re going to try to go win the last two races of the season and hang our heads high.”
The points situation is now very shaken up after the first Playoff race. Points leader Danny Bohn was running second in the early stages of the race, and was battling with Carson Loftin side-by-side after the restart from the stage break. Loftin dove to Bohn’s inside in Turn 3, but something broke on his left front, sending him into Bohn and both his the outside wall hard.
Bohn had a five point lead after the points reset, and finished 22nd, DNFing. However, all four other playoff drivers had lackluster races as well, and the top four in the points are now tied with two races to go in the season. Ryan Newman, Jake Crum, Brandon Ward, and Bohn are all tied at 557 points. Burt Myers is 17 points back after a 16th place run.
The next race is at Tri-County on October 3rd. FloRacing will have coverage of the event.
Full results can be viewed below.
SMART Modified Tour Rumble at Rougemont Orange County Speedway September 19, 2026
1. 13 Cayden Lapcevich 2. 40 Carter McMurray 3. 12 Bryce Bailey 4. 04 Brandon Ward 5. 7NY Jack Baldwin 6. 7VA Luke Baldwin 7. 5 Tom Buzze 8. 16VA Jonathan Cash 9. 1JC Jake Crum 10. 02 Joey Coulter IV 11. 79 James Civali 12. 24 Jonathan Brown 13. 55 Jeremy Gerstner 14. 2 Ryan Newman 15. 17 William Lambros 16. 1 Burt Myers 17. 18 Daniel Yates 18. 17 Conner Jones 19. 99 Sean McElearney 20. 15F Ryan Flores 21. 22 Jimmy Wallace 22. 25 Danny Bohn 23. 15 Carson Loftin 24. 11 Chase Robertson 25. 48 Johnny Kievman
