Late Model Stocks were back at Florence Motor Speedway this past Saturday night for just the third time this season, for the Sun Fun 101 on Summer Sizzler night. The race served as round five of the 2026 I-95 Showdown between Florence and Southern National Motorsports Park, after Southern National’s cancellation back on June 5 bumped it up the schedule from its previous round six spot.
It was a battle of Florence heavyweights at the front for most of the night, and as has been the story at Florence all season long, it was the twin brothers Casey and Cody Kelley at the front in the closing laps. In the end, it was AK Performance and Casey Kelley who picked up the win, his first Late Model Stock win of the season joining his brother Cody and Keelan Harvick as I-95 Showdown winners at Florence this season.
Twin brother Cody Kelley and defending I-95 champion Matt Cox completed the podium, while Ryan Glenski and Matthew Laprade ran a distant fourth and fifth to complete the top-five.
“Yeah, Cody has had us for a little while now with the No. 13 car,” Casey Kelley said in victory lane. “But, any time AK Performance brings you a ride out here it’s going to be good, … I was able to get out front on that high side restart and just save tires, but also run real fast and it was hooked up all night.
“Clean air is a big deal. You don’t have to try and mess up your tires to get under somebody. It takes more than one lap to pass somebody so every lap that you’re burning up your tires under somebody or above them, it’s hurting you.”
With the CARS Tour race at Florence looming in a few weeks time, both the Kelley brothers were in search of all the notes they could gather in order to contend with the Tour regulars that come to town. Neither Kelley twin has managed to win an IceBreaker, South Carolina 400 or CARS Tour event at the track, and both look to change that in the near future.
“This is a good race to build the notebook for the CARS Tour race coming up in a couple weeks,” Casey said. “All you fans need to come out to that one, it’ll be a great show.”
Casey Kelley started on pole but lost the lead on the opening lap to outside front-row starter Cox, who led the first nine laps. After the only caution of the event for a stalled Truet Miranda re-racked the field on lap nine, Kelley, like Cox on the initial start, worked the outside lane on the restart to grab the lead.
For a chunk of the race, the Kelley twins and Cox were tightly bunched together, saving tires while also putting some major distance between themselves and Jamie Weatherford, and later Glenski. As the laps wound down, Cox lost the handle on his car and faded significantly, while Cody Kelley worked around the No. 51 for second.
“I don’t know, maybe I just needed a little bit of track position,” Cody said post-race. “We were pretty even there at the end, he might have been saving a little bit. The car was just a little bit free off the corner, I guess that’s what we struggled with tonight but we both had really good race cars. It was fun racing with Matt [Cox] and Jamie [Weatherford], that was a heck of a race. It was a hot one, I’m beat after that.”
As Florence has made the transition to Limited Late Model racing on the weekly schedule rather than running Late Model Stocks, the starts for Cox have been few and far between. He’s been competitive in the races he’s been in, but Saturday night’s feature showed they’re a bit off from where they need to be.
“They were really good here tonight,” Cox said post-race. “They’ve been really good here all year, we’ve just got to get a little better. We were a little off, we haven’t raced in almost two months, … They were really good, they’ve been really good almost every time they’ve been here and it’s a good judge tonight on how much better we need to be for the CARS Tour race in a couple weeks.”
The I-95 Showdown will now go quiet for a few months, before ramping back up to finish out the season. The next scheduled race of the series is set for Saturday, October 10 at Florence, and Southern National’s next event for the series is set for Halloween night, Saturday, October 31. The South Carolina 400 at Florence, and the Thanksgiving Classic at SNMP, both in November, serve as the last two races and the championship round of the series.
Sun Fun 101 results:
- Casey Kelley
- Cody Kelley
- Matt Cox
- Ryan Glenski
- Matthew Laprade
- Ryan Zima
- Cassidy Keitt
- Jamie Weatherford
- Brandon Elvis
- Truett Miranda
