HICKORY, N.C. – Josh Berry continued a successful return to late model racing Saturday night by conquering the late model stock portion of the CARS Tour Throwback 276 at Hickory Motor Speedway.
The victory for Berry comes one week after he won the Hampton Heat 100 at Langley Speedway in Hampton, Va. It was his first late model race in several months as he focused his efforts on his burgeoning NASCAR career.
Berry started off the evening by qualifying on the pole for the 138-lap race. He quickly gave the lead up to outside polesitter Mason Diaz, fading to the back half of the top-five during the first run.
At the front, Mini Tyrrell was able to run down and pass Diaz to take the lead on lap 24. Berry would hang in the top-five and was running third when the field was slowed for a competition caution at the 40-lap mark.
Tyrrell, driving a car wrapped to match the Quaker State late model once driven by the late Ricky Hendrick, continued to control the field until the second competition caution at lap 80. He held the lead during the restart, but the caution would wave at lap 85 when Timothy Peters crashed in turn two.
At that point Berry had made his way to second and during the next restart he made short work of Tyrrell, who fell into a battle with Diaz for the runner-up spot.
Diaz was able to stay with Berry until they reached the back half of the field, which allowed Berry to separate himself from Diaz. Berry looked to have the race in hand until the a multi-car accident in turn four slowed the race with 10 laps left.
Berry was able to hold off Diaz on the restart, but the caution flag waved one more time when Bubba Pollard crashed. That set up the final restart, which saw Diaz stay glued to Berry’s inside for two laps before Berry was finally able to pull clear.
Diaz tried to get alongside Berry entering turn one on the final lap, but he couldn’t make the move stick and Berry held on to capture the $6,000 payday aboard his JR Motorsports late model.
“That was tough man. Obviously I didn’t want to see those cautions,” Berry explained. “It seems like that kind of stuff happens in these races every now and then. You’ve always got to be prepared for it. I was trying to manage my tires, manage my gap there. Just got in a lot of lap traffic and kind of lost track of where our gap was.
“Our car was good, it took about 10 laps to fire off. It was a little bit tight for about 10 laps. Then it got really good. Unfortunately we had a 10 lap run at the end, so we had our hands full.”
Diaz settled for second while Sam Yarbrough finished third. Tyrrell faded to fourth after leading the middle portion of the race. Defending CARS Late Model Stock Tour champion Jared Fryar finished fifth.
In the CARS Super Late Model Tour race that opened the evening, Matt Craig became a two-time Throwback 276 winner after outrunning NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular Chandler Smith in the closing laps.
Craig spent most of the race fighting with Carson Kvapil, who beat Craig with a last-lap pass at Hickory in March. Kvapil took the lead from Craig on lap 19 and Craig spent 60 laps chasing Kvapil as he looked for a way around.
Craig found his way by following a restart on the 80th circuit while Kvapil fell into a battle with Smith for the runner-up spot. Craig pulled away from the battle for second until Daniel Webster spun on the frontstretch on lap 107 to draw a caution flag.
During the restart Pollard, the only driver to pull double-duty, used a great jump to drive by Smith and Kvapil to move into second, only for Smith to run him down and take the runner-up spot back with 10 laps left. He tried to run down Craig, but Craig had built too much of a lead and he had to settle for second.
“You’ve got to save tires. Just because you’re not going a whole lot slower than a car, you’re still saving tires by the way you run the corner and you run your car,” said Craig, who beat Smith to the finish by .804 seconds for the $5,000 prize. “I think Kvapil, maybe he had something else go on, but I felt like the line he was taking around the corner was just eating his tires up faster.”
Pollard finished third, more than four seconds back of Craig. Kvapil was fourth and Kyle Plott finished fifth.
The finishes:
Late Model Stocks: Josh Berry, Mason Diaz, Sam Yarbrough, Mini Tyrrell, Jared Fryar, Bobby McCarty, Kaden Honeycutt, Sam Butler, Conner Jones, Deac McCaskill, Jonathan Shafer, Craig Moore, Justin Johnson, Jonathan Findley, Mike Looney, Brandon Pierce, Connor Mosack, Tyler Matthews, Landon Huffman, Joe Valento, Mike Darne, Mitch Walker, Daniel Silvestri, Bubba Pollard, Ryan Millington, Timothy Peters, Chase Dixon, Zane Smith.
Super Late Models: Matt Craig, Chandler Smith, Bubba Pollard, Carson Kvapil, Kyle Plott, Brandon Setzer, Lee Tissot, Michael Ritch, Daniel Webster, Jeff Batten, Justin Crider, Tyler Church.