CONCORD, N.C. — The CARS Tour opened its season March 11 at North Carolina’s Southern National Motorsports Park. It was the first race for the series under its new management team.
The Solid Rock Carriers CARS Tour is already one of the best — if not the best — late model stock series in the land, so with Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton and Justin Marks on board, it is bound to be even better.
If that’s possible.
The secret of the CARS Tour is simple: sensible rules, solid organization and a feel for what makes good racing. The rules package makes sense: competition cautions at sensible distances, fair and impartial officiating and a desire to keep its fan base happy.
With former drivers — and champion drivers at that — in ownership positions, that’s not likely to change.
The CARS Tour puts me in mind of the original American Speed Ass’n, founded by Rex Robbins and partners in the Midwest during the early ’70s.
Take a large group of cars that run essentially the same equipment, give them a schedule that covers a lot of ground and gives the weekly fans a big show, promote the hell out of it and see what happens.
Robbins and his team forged a path for others to follow and Jack McNelly and Keeley Dubensky have done similar things. The CARS Tour was born out of the old Pro Cup Series (which began as the Hooters Pro Cup) and followed much the same principle.
The big secret for ASA was in taking recognizable names — Dick Trickle, Junior Hanley, Bob Senneker, Mike Eddy — and combining them with up-and-coming drivers such as Mark Martin, Bobby Dotter, Joe Shear, etc. That gave fans old and new a horse in the race.
It also gave people a look at some of the best in the business.
The CARS Tour has that as well. Deac McCaskill, who leads most of the CARS Tour statistical categories or at least the ones Josh Berry doesn’t, is an original with the tour, and drivers like Bobby McCarty, Layne Riggs and others are among the group of vets that light the way.
Young drivers, like 2022 champ Carson Kvapil, Kaden Honeycutt, Brendan McQueen and others, are the young bucks. Many aspiring stock car drivers are coming to the CARS Tour to learn the ropes, and there are some demanding taskmasters to teach them.
The good part of this, among many, is that the number of eyeballs on the series will increase this season. Not that there was a lack of them in 2022, that is. The name recognition alone from the new ownership group is enough to generate exponential increases, and the racing remains hard and fast in an area of the country where those qualities are cherished.
Young drivers cut their teeth and make their bones in the CARS Tour before starting up the NASCAR ladder. Several of them do both at the same time, and it’s an interesting mix.
As the NASCAR series continue to evolve, so do the grassroots legions who aspire to that next level. Manufacturers, particularly Chevrolet and Toyota, are using the CARS Tour to build the next crop of drivers, crew chiefs, spotters and mechanics, to good effect.
Lessons learned at Hickory (N.C.) Motor Speedway or South Boston (Va.) Speedway can be translated to Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway and Richmond (Va.) Raceway, and from there to Daytona Int’l Speedway and Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. It’s how racing has always worked, and the way it’s supposed to work.
Keep an eye on the CARS Tour. Chances are, a future NASCAR young gun is racing there right now, and that will go a long way toward ensuring the premier series keeps up with the talent of the day.
This story appeared in the April 5, 2023 edition of the SPEED SPORT Insider.
