CALDWELL COUNTY, N.C. — The zMAX CARS Tour’s second trip to Tri-County Motor Speedway on Saturday evening proved to be special for Conner Jones in more ways than one.
With Tri-County operators Shad and Shane Higgins actively busy helping with relief efforts in the Appalachian Mountains stemming from Hurricane Helene, Jones and his family wanted to give back to the Higgins family. They did this by having Ashton Higgins pilot their No. 44 Pro Late Model while Jones elected to focus solely on his Late Model Stock.
Jones’ generous act came back to him for Saturday’s CARS Tour 225 pres. by GeoCut. With several top contenders being eliminated in the closing stages due to various reasons, Jones utilized a strong car to fend off Brenden Queen and earn his first CARS Late Model Stock Car Tour victory in over two years.
“We’ve had a rough, really bad year,” Jones said. “We should have had Ace [Speedway] won, but we didn’t do that. I knew coming into this weekend we had to win, because [Tri-County] is one of my best racetracks and I know it like the back of my hand. The car we unloaded was absolutely phenomenal.”
An expedited schedule due to an 11 p.m. ET curfew meant Jones had to wait and celebrate with his crew until after the CARS Pro Late Model Tour feature, which was won by Kaden Honeycutt following a controversial final restart.
Tristan McKee initially parked his car in Cook Out Victory Lane after obtaining a huge jump during the final restart on Honeycutt, who was the control car. Race control determined after the checkered flag that McKee had committed a restart violation, which gave Honeycutt his second CARS PLM Tour victory of 2024.
“It was pretty easy to decide [on that restart],” Honeycutt said. “I’m a little biased, but they made the right call. I never even thought about firing because I knew what [McKee] was going to try and do. I was pretty surprised they didn’t throw the yellow, but I’m just glad they made the right call.”
Honeycutt’s two wins on the year have come with two different programs. He took Mavrick Page Motorsports to Cook Out Victory Lane at Orange County Speedway in April before departing the organization to close out 2024 with Bryson Lopez Racing.