Carson Loftin scored another dominant SMART Modified Tour win while the Playoff drivers scrambled for every point behind him at Tri-County Speedway.
Loftin has been statistically the best driver in the SMART Modified Tour even though he only has seven starts on the year. This marks his fourth win in the series, again in dominant fashion, but this one was hard fought, however.
Loftin set the fastest time in qualifying, but the redraw had him start third. It didn’t take him long to find the lead however. Just 11 laps in, Loftin got by Ryan Newman to take the lead, then go on to win the stage.
Under the stage caution, all but two drivers pitted to get a brand new right rear tire, first place Loftin, and second place Danny Bohn. While Bohn slipped back on the restart, Loftin was able to open up a comfortable lead. Meanwhile, Cayden Lapcevich had worked his way up to second, when a caution came out for a spinning Bryce Bailey in turn two on lap 47.
Lapcevich, with a fresh right rear tire, lined up outside of Loftin for the restart. The pair raced door to door for three straight laps, with Loftin trying to keep Lapcevich trapped next to marbles on top, until Lapcevich got stuck too high up in turn four, getting trapped in the marbles and losing all of his momentum. He fell back to fifth as he regained control, and grip.
This moved Carter McMurray into second, and he started trying to chase down Lofin. After changing his line and running higher, McMurray started gaining on Loftin, but a caution for a spinning Brandon Ward with nine laps to go brought out the caution, setting up for a sprint to the finish. Loftin chose the outside for the restart, putting McMurray on the bottom, and Lapcevich right on his rear bumper. Lapcevich stayed on top of Loftin going into turn one once the green flag flew, but chose to not muscle Loftin out of the way, allowing Loftin to open up a gap once again and take the win.
“The car was really good all day,” Loftin said in victory lane. “We were really tight in qualifying, and that kind of swung our balance. We’ve been free all day, and we were really tight in qualifying. Just kind of second guess right before the race, pre-race adjustment stuff.
“Real estate is just so big in this racetrack, and I knew when I chose the bottom, I had to have a really good restart. And I didn’t. We were even going into one, because he’s having to restart really good. And real estate, like I say, is so big, and the marbles – we throw a lot of loose rubber up on the top, and I was trying to run him really tight to that. I had no intention of putting him up there, especially that early in the race. Like, I’m smarter than that. I know better than that. We were rubbing bars just like you would in a modified, and I was kind of… I wasn’t going in there and nerfing him way high.
“ I was just kind of leaning on him a little bit to kind of get as much real estate as I could, and I guess I pushed him too far up into three and four, and he jumped the marbles. I’m really mad at myself. You know, I had to go back and watch it, but I really didn’t want to consider myself winning that way, because I have a lot of respect for Cayden, and I definitely didn’t want to do that, especially that early. I had no reason to do that. So, I’ll have to go back and watch it, and hopefully I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Lapcevich was upset at Loftin for how he raced him, citing the same things Loftin did about himself.
“Just another really good race car by our WSR PRF team,” Lapcevich said. “You know, we work hard. I work in the shop every night on this thing, and definitely have some sacrifices in my home life for it. But, you know, we have a lot of fun doing it. We got up to second. And, you know, was even with Carson. And right from the drop of the green, he just kept running me in the marbles, running me in the marbles, running me in the marbles. And, you can say, oh, he did it once, but that’s just the highest he got me, and it finally got me in all the shit.
“He did it to Burt last year, and he did it to Danny on every restart, and he did it to whoever was on the outside on every restart. So, I should have known better. I don’t know. I had a shot to hit him in the one there on the last restart. But, you know, I work on these things. I know how hard it is to put them back together, and I don’t race like that. I know I showed a little bit of emotion there after the checkered and probably shouldn’t have, but I don’t think I did anything I’m going to regret.”
Lapcevich knows Loftin is a great driver, but feels like his head has gotten too big throughout the season, and will remember how he was raced.
“I don’t know. He’s a good kid. He’s a good driver. His dad was always really good, too. So, I don’t know. He started winning races, and his head got big, and now he’s turned into a completely different driver. So, we’ll move on from it.”
While the leaders pulled away, all five Playoff drivers were running fifth through tenth, and most all of them faced some adversity. Burt Myers spun on lap eight and took out the cones and barely hit the barrels blocking the pit wall at pit entrance, Ward had the spin with nine laps to go, and Bohn pitted on lap 47, falling to the tail of the field. Ryan Newman started second, but both he and Jake Crum were never able to battle hard with the leaders.
Despite all of that, four of them found themselves nose to tail during the last nine laps. Ward was the only Playoff driver not in the battle as a result of the spin. All four fought hard, and Bohn using his fresher right rear was able to work to the front of the group. He got side by side with McMurray for fourth, but was unable to complete the pass.
So Bohn finished fifth, Crum finished sixth, Myers finished seventh, and Newman finished eighth. Ward was only able to get back up to 12th after his late spin. Since the top four in points were tied, and Myers was 17 points back, going into this race, the points are as tight as ever going into the championship race at North Wilkesboro on October 17.
Full finishing results can be viewed below.
SMART Modified Tour Tri-County Speedway October 9, 2026
1. 15 Carson Loftin 2. 13 Cayden Lapcevich 3. 7VA Luke Bladwin 4. 40 Carter McMurray 5. 25 Danny Bogn 6. 1JC Jake Crum 7. 1 Burt Myers 8. 2 Ryan Newman 9. 02 Joey Coulter 10. 7NY Jack Baldwin 11. 24 Jonathan Brown 12. 04 Brandon Ward 13. 99 Bryce Bailey 14. 16VA Carson Haislip 15. 5 Tom Buzze 16. 14 Austin McDaniel 17. Will Lambros 18. 79 James Civali 19. 71 Mike Speeney 20. 47 Jaxson Casper 21. 40F Luke Fleming 22. 21 Jimmy Wallace 23. 10M Mark Manno 24. Jonny Kievman 25. 15SM Sean McElearney
