Luke Baldwin earned the second win of his career and season in the CARS Pro Late Model Tour at Anderson Motor Speedway.
Baldwin was running third when the field restarted with 60 laps to go with Ben Maier leading and Tristan McKee running second. In Turn 1, Maier and McKee made contact, sending them both up the track and allowing Baldwin to slip by to take the lead.
After he took the lead, Baldwin led the rest of the way and by a considerable margin as well. Isaac Kitzmiller finished second but was over 6.6 seconds behind Baldwin at the checkered flag.
“I got a decent start,” Baldwin said. “And they went into two and just ran each other off the racetrack, I think. It happened so quick. All of a sudden, I saw a lane open wide for me and drove through it. I hate that’s the way I had to take the lead, but we had a really good race car there at the end of the run.
“I think it would have been a really good race between me and [Maier]. (He) was pretty lights out all day today, so I figured that was going to be the car to beat. We got lucky, got a gift and was able to just set sail.”
Maier was able to rally back after the contact with McKee and finish fourth, just missing out on a podium as Kitzmiller passed him on the last lap.
“I was really good at the beginning,” Maier said. “I was saving my stuff a lot, saving my brakes. Towards the end I had no pedal. I was pushing all the way down and couldn’t get anything out of the brakes. I had to pump them up all the way down the straightaway to get pressure towards the end.
“That restart, I don’t know if I just went up too high. I think I did go up too high and we hit tires, but I don’t think that affected what happened. I’m pretty sure the car behind me got into me. I’d have to go and watch it back. I just felt the rear end of my car lift up and I’m not sure if that was [me and McKee] hopping tires or if that was [Baldwin] getting into me and lifting my back up. But it would have been really good if that didn’t happen.”
McKee was unable to finish the race due to the damages sustained because of the contact. He felt like he had the fastest car in the race and could have won if not for the contact.
“I had a really, really good car there,” McKee said. “We got past [Reif] and [Baldwin] before that, and we were just kind of maintaining with [Maier] there. We knew we had a competition caution coming soon, so we were just kind of riding, saving our tires a little bit. Our car was really, really good. It would get through the center really good.
I think we definitely had the winning car. We got a good restart there on the outside. I’d gotten to [Turn] 1 a little ahead of him. So he just, I don’t know, I gave him room. I watched the replay. He just kind of doored into me and got me pretty hard. And then when he hit my left front, he knocked out the camber so I couldn’t drive it. The wheels were all going the wrong way.”
While Kitzmiller finished second, he was fourth with two laps to go. In Turn 1 with two laps remaining, he got by Maier to take third, and on the last lap he passed Seth Christensen, who was overheating in Turn 4 to get the second spot.
“In qualifying, I messed up,” Kitzmiller said. “We had to work hard all day. There in the beginning I tried the high side and it just didn’t work out. After everybody got jumbled up I was able to make my way through with minimum damage. I knew we had a really good long run car and it really showed.”
Christensen rounded out the podium in third, finishing just a car length off of Kitzmiller despite nearly having the motor blow.
“I was terrified. I thought for sure we were [going to] blow up way before that,” Christensen said. “We were so fast. With around 20 to go, it started getting hotter and hotter. It maxed out at 280 [degrees] and my crew chief said we were going to run it to the end. Just happy we got to finish.”
zMAX CARS Pro Late Model Tour
Anderson Motor Speedway
August 16, 2025
1. #51 Luke Baldwin
2. #25 Isaac Kitzmiller
3. #54 Seth Christensen
4. #6 Ben Maier
5. #47 Tyler Reif
6. #97 Dylan Garner
7. #6L Brandon Lopez
8. #4 Trey Burke
9. #9 Ashton Higgins
10. #24 Jade Avedisian
11. #15 Rodney Dowless
12. #2 Hudson Canipe
13. #16 Timothy Sozio
14. #8 Toro Rodriquez
15. #7 Tristan McKee
16. #75 Tristan Pena
17. #82 Taylor Hull
