MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Carson Kvapil requested pickle juice and mustard from his team during the halfway break to help him go the distance, and it turned out to be the secret sauce as he took home the Martinsville Speedway Grandfather Clock as the winner of the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 on Saturday night.
After coming oh-so-close in his first two attempts at winning the biggest and richest Late Model Stock Car race, the two-time CARS Tour champion finally had the car to go the distance and then some, as the race ended in overtime.
“This race has been the one that we’ve been chasing the last three years I’ve been racing with these guys,” said Kvapil. “We came up super close last year and the year before, finishing second and third. I was pretty worried going into this one that we just weren’t going to have the speed, but fortunately, we had a good car the whole weekend.
“It’s awesome. Just to be driving and racing with this group and being competitive like this is awesome. And to be able to bring home one of the Martinsville clocks is even better.”
Kvapil won his qualifying race earlier in the afternoon, placing him on the front row for the start. And he stayed near the front through the first half of the race and sat in second at the halfway break after battling Mike Looney through the opening 100 laps.
Following a caution with 70 to go, Kvapil took the lead and maintained control through several late restarts, including one that pushed the race into overtime. Looney finished second, Treyten Lapcevich was third, and Casey Kelley and Bobby McCarty finished out the top five.
Despite capturing the win, Kvapil wasn’t eligible for the Virginia Triple Crown title, as he didn’t compete in the opening two races – the Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200 at South Boston Speedway and the Hampton Heat 200 at Langley Speedway.
There were times near the end of the race where it looked like it wasn’t meant to be for Peyton Sellers to win his fifth Virginia Triple Crown title. But in the end, the two-time Weekly Series national champion and 2022 ValleyStar Credit Union 300 winner finished ninth in the race and earned the $7,000 bonus.
Recently crowned two-time NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series champion Connor Hall entered the race with a clear lead in the Virginia Triple Crown standings with an average finish of 1.5 through the first two races, while Sellers was second in the Triple Crown standings with an average finish of 3.5.
Their lead in the standings seemingly grew on paper before the race even started as Brenden “Butterbean” Queen and Kaden Honeycutt didn’t enter the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 due to racing in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway on Friday night. As a result, Kade Brown slid up into third in the standings entering the race, but it was a distant third with an 8.5 average finish through the opening two races.
Hall’s on-track performance during the daylight indicated that he could end the night with a Grandfather Clock and a Triple Crown title, as he was fastest in practice and qualified well enough to start on the front row of the final qualifying race, which he won. And Sellers was solidly in the top five through the first half after winning his qualifying race and starting on the second row.
But when the lights came on at night, Hall battled mechanical issues and damage from an early crash, while halfway break setup changes seemed to hurt Sellers’ speed. As those two battled their issues, it looked like Brown was going to play the role of spoiler in the Triple Crown, sitting fourth in the race with 10 laps to go.
As Sellers fell outside the top 10 late in the race, Brown was battling Jake Crum inside the top five with 10 laps to go. Coming to the line with seven laps remaining, both Brown and Crum were sideways – and saved it – through Turn 4. But as Crum pulled ahead into Turn 1, Aaron Donnelly and Daniel Silvestri came together on the inside of Brown, putting him into the wall in Turn 2 and ending his night and Triple Crown hopes.
“It just tells you how hard it is in the state of Virginia, there’s a lot of good short track racers competing for this thing every week and it’s just an honor to be able to do it,” said Sellers. “Yeah, we didn’t get the finish we wanted tonight, but we had a very strong run a South Boston and a very strong run at Langley, and we had a good car up until the break, bolted on tires and made a couple adjustments and it just wasn’t right.
“I hate that we didn’t have a better finish, but to win this Triple Crown is a big deal for us and our family.”
The day started out looking like a dream for Kyle Dudley, as he was the fastest qualifier, winning a $5,000 bonus check, and then won the opening qualifying race to start on the pole for the ValleyStar Credit Union 300.
But 66 laps into the race, it turned into a nightmare as his visions of winning his first Martinsville Grandfather Clock faded away as he brought out the caution with a spin. His night ended approximately 10 laps later when he hit the wall shortly after the restart.
There was drama late in the first half of the race, as Hall dropped back from his fourth-place starting position early, settling in around eighth with an apparent mechanical gremlin. He was able to keep the car in the top 10 through the opening 85 laps, until he was battling Tristan McKee coming out of Turn 4 and the pair came together. Hall spun on the frontstretch, but was able to finish the spin pointed in the right direction with minimal positions lost.
While Hall was spinning, mayhem struck behind him as the field checked up in response to the contact in front of them. A large pileup ensued, leading to a red flag just 15 laps before the halfway break.
When the red flag lifted, Hall took his damaged car to pit road where he went down a pair of laps to the field while the team worked on both the mechanical issue and the damage, effectively eliminating him from Triple Crown contention.