The Solid Rock Carriers CARS Tour made a return visit to North Carolina’s Ace Speedway for Friday’s Puryear Tank Lines 225 and the big winners were Kaden Honeycutt, who claimed the $10,000 to win Late Model Stock Car feature and Caden Kvapil, who won the Pro Late Model feature.
It was Honeycutt’s first CARS Tour victory this season.
“This was for Paw Paw,” Honeycutt told his father after the win, referring to his grandfather. “He played a big role in my career.
“We had some luck, finally, for the first time this year at the end of one of these races. I was not confident going into the gate today, but we wholesaled it before qualifying and ended up on the front row.
“It wasn’t me driving, it’s going to be hard for me the rest of the night to capture this one. It’s a very emotional night for me.”
His team made “wholesale changes” to the car before qualifying.
“We’re competitors,” the winner said. “We wholesaled this thing after practice and made it work. Thank you to all of my supporters. I can’t do it without you guys. It was a heck of a win. We got a win like we were hoping for, and we’ll see if we can’t get another one.”
Friday’s contest was originally scheduled as a standalone Late Model Stock Car race on May 6 but was postponed twice. CARS officials made it a doubleheader by combining Late Model Stock was Pro Late Model, giving the crowd a full menu of motorsports action.
Carson Kvapil, the Late Model Stock Car points leader, did not compete in Friday night’s event because he is serving a suspension for crashing Zack Miracle during the cooldown lap at the previous LMSC contest. Josh Berry took over the JR Motorsports ride for the 125-lap race.
Honeycutt and Ryan Millington led the field to the green flag flag and both battled side-by-side until Millington rook the lead on lap six.
Berry, who had won 22 CARS Tour races in his career, was slipping, and sliding in his pursuit of the top 10 early in the race. Twenty-five laps in, Berry and Zack Miracle began to beat and bang around the track.
With 96 laps left in the race, Ashton Higgins spun to turn on the caution light for the first time in the Feature race.
The green flag waved, and it was Honeycutt and Millington at it once again only this time Honeycutt took the lead before Millington regained it a few laps later.
Blake Stallings and Hayden Swank both crashed into turn one for another caution, slowing the race with 86 laps to go.
Back to race, Honeycutt had a clean start as the field settled in.
Trevor Ward’s car lost power with 72 laps left in the contest and he brought the car into the pits.
“Honestly, the motor was locking up the whole time, it was getting tight,” Ward said. “We’ve had a good end to the season. Hopefully I can get enough money for another motor.
“I couldn’t charge the corner hard. We have a really good car; a good motor guy and we’ll be back strong again.”
Racing resumed with 63 to go and Honeycutt again had the advantage.
Hayden Swank spun in turn one with 57 to go, the third caution the driver was involved in at Ace for the night. Brandon Pierce’s night also came to an end in the pit area with a car issue. Bobby McCarty also dropped out during the caution.
After a botched restart, the field lined up again for another restart Millington got a great restart on the top line to take over the lead on lap 69.
Millington was back in front on lap 72.
Honeycutt and Chad McCumbee began to pull away from the field.
With 100 laps complete, McCumbee had closed the gap on the race leader. With seven laps to go, McCumbee’s car slowed, taking him out of contention for the win.
“It’s the second time the same thing has happened,” McCumbee said. “It’s like an O-ring failure in the brake caliper and it pushes all the fluid out of it.
“Man, I hate it. That car was where it needed to be. It would have been tough to get by Kaden. He did a great job. It’s a bummer, man, but we’ll get her put back together.”
In the closing laps, Honeycutt was able to cruise to the win over Josh Berry, who returns to Charlotte Motor Speedway to race on the ROVAL Saturday.
In the Pro Late Model division, Luke Fenhaus entered the race leading by 278 points. William Sawalich was second, 15 points down, Caden Kvapil is 19 back, Austin MacDonald is 41 out and Kody King 94 back in fifth place.
Young Kvapil was the race winner by .403 seconds over Mason Diaz in the PLMC feature.
The race ran green until 34 laps were left in the feature and Mason Diaz had built a sizable 1.410-second lead over Kvapil. That allowed Kvapil and Fenhaus to close up on the rear of Diaz’s car.
After a brief stoppage, the green flag waved, and it was a three-wide battle between Diaz, Kvapil and Fenhaus going into turn one with Diaz holding the position on lap 41. But one lap later, Kvapil took the lead when he passed Diaz led the first into turn one.
Diaz tried to nose under Kvapil’s car for three laps but could not get enough traction to take the lead.
But with 27 laps to go, Kvapil got a tap from Diaz, sending the leader just enough out of the groove to make the pass for the lead.
Diaz built a 1.118-second lead with nine to go before Austin MacDonald crashed into the turn-one wall to bring out the yellow flag. Race control was informed there was fluid on the track and that may have contributed to the crash. It appeared that smoke was coming from underneath MacDonald’s ride.
When a pool of fluid leaked out of MacDonald’s car, it brought out the red flag to stop the race until Ace Speedway track crews could clean up the fluid.
“Right now, I think the motor let go,” MacDonald said. “it’s disappointing. We had such a good run going. I feel like we made a lot of positive gains this season already. I have to thank everybody that puts this thing together to allow me to do this.”
After the cleanup, the engines were refired to set up the dash to the checkered flag.
Diaz went sideways on cold tires and Kvapil had better grip to take the lead. Diaz and Fenhouse banged fenders in the fight for second place before Fenhouse returned the favor and spun Diaz out of turn three after Diaz attempted the crossover move.
Fenhouse was moved to the back of the field for avoidable contact.
Another restart followed with six laps to go. Kvapil got the jump on Luke Morey and Katie Hettinger moved up to second place.
But Kody King spun in turn onefor another caution with four laps to go.
Kvapil picked the outside lane on the restart with Hettinger on the inside for the restart. Kvapil held the lead with Diaz putting pressure on Hettinger and making the pass for second with three laps to go.
Diaz was in second on the white flag lap, but Kvapil held on for the victory by .403 seconds over Diaz. Fenhaus was third followed by Hettinger and Morey.
“We got the lead the first time and when the yellow came out again, we both got pushed up the hill but were able to hold on,” Kvapil said. “It was super intense behind the wheel because of how tight we were. In every corner, Mason Diaz was right behind us, and he had better grip. But we were able to hold him off.”
Kvapil’s older brother celebrated the victory by dousing Caden Kvapil with ice-water.
Both Diaz and Fenhaus were able to rally back after being sent to the back for the two incidents earlier in the race to score top three finishes.
“I should have won that won, but great job to Caden,” Diaz said. “It all came from my mistakes on restarts. Live and learn from this race, but we have another chance to get them.”
Fenhaus described his earlier incident with Diaz.
“He just ran over me in the backstretch, so I did it back to him and they put us in the rear,” Fenhaus said. “They need to reinforce the rules right away at the start of the season. We started off really tight and were going to have a good race car, but I lost so much momentum in turns three and four. We have to keep fighting as a team and go to South Boston.”
Diaz also competed in the final race of the evening.
Hettinger finished fourth after her crew frantically worked on the engine before the start of the race.
“I think we had a good night,” she said. “My car was missing but this finish definitely helped us. It was a good night. I made a little driver mistake at the end, and I need to get better on my restarts, but I had fun racing. It was a good night. I’m happy.”
Michael Tucker scored his fifth win at Ace Speedway in the night’s first event, the Puryear Tank Mini-Stock feature race. Chuck Wall finished second and Tyler Busch was third.
Ace Speedway 502 Modifieds was next with another 30-lap contest. Gary Causey was the winner followed by Todd Massey and Nathan Garrett.
Champ Karts followed, and Tony Arnold had a hard lick against the turn-two wall a few laps int other contest after he collided with another kart. Brian Hutcherson defeated Tommy Elliott in a virtual dead heat, .009 seconds.