Things are heating up in Virginia.
The southeastern stars of Late Model Stock Car racing will gather at Langley Speedway this Saturday (July 20) for the 16th Annual Hampton Heat. The 200-lap test around one of the toughest tracks in the region serves as the second leg of the Virginia Triple Crown.
June’s Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200 at South Boston Speedway gave us an early look at the battle for the Triple Crown in 2024. While some big names are in prime position, others are left with a hole to dig out of at Langley before the Triple Crown wraps up at Martinsville Speedway in September.
With a tickets already sold out and 38 cars on the entry list, including some big names, this is officially the biggest installment of the Late Model crown jewel to date.
Here are the names you should be watching during ‘America’s Hottest Race.’
The Hometown Superstars
The two odds-on favorites to win Hampton Heat just happen to be two of Langley’s own, Connor Hall and Brenden Queen. The two have dominated Langley over the past few years, winning nearly everything there is to win at the Hampton oval.
Hailing from Chesapeake, Va., Queen is a two-time and defending winner of the 200-lap showcase event, having scored his first victory in 2020 and triumphing again in 2023.
In addition to Hampton Heat success, Queen picked up his first career zMAX CARS Tour win in his second series start at Langley back in 2022. He also claimed three-consecutive track championships from 2020-2022.
Hall also has a Hampton Heat trophy to his name, having won the event back in 2019. The CARS Tour points leader ran second to Queen a year ago. He’ll look to even the score in 2024.
Hall has enjoyed great amounts of success outside of Hampton Heat at Langley, much like Queen above. He’s won the past two CARS Tour races at Langley and is the defending track champion.
Hall won a whopping 14 races at the track in 2023 on his way to the NASCAR Advanced Auto Parts Weekly Series National Championship.
After winning at South Boston, Hall sits atop the Triple Crown Standings with an average finish of 1.0, while Queen struggled and now sits with an 8.0 and work to do this Saturday night.
Both drivers grew up in the area and call Langley their home track, but the pair receive vastly different reactions from the Langley crowd. Queen serves as the hero and is given adulation, while Hall is the villain and could be subject to a chorus of boos. Nobody should be surprised if the two of them fight it out for another Hampton Heat victory.
Triple Crown Contenders
Aside from the two Langley locals, two drivers in prime position to challenge for the Triple Crown title are Peyton Sellers and Kaden Honeycutt.
Sellers is no stranger to success in the Triple Crown, having won four of the 10 titles since the inception of the mini series. The veteran took the top honors back-to-back in 2013 and 2014, won his third in 2018 and claimed a fourth in 2022.
The Danville native has won the past three track championships at Dominion Raceway after claiming four-consecutive track championships at South Boston from 2017-2021 – no races were held amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 202 – so Sellers knows how to race for championships.
The problem for Sellers is lack of historical success at Langley, where aside from a Hampton Heat victory in 2013, he’s struggled.
Honeycutt has comparatively found great success in a small sample size at Langley. In just three CARS Tour starts at the track, Honeycutt has an impressive average finish of 2.67.
The native Texan led all 125 laps en route to a CARS win in 2021, followed that up with a fourth in 2022 and led 94 laps before fading to third in 2023. Honeycutt didn’t compete in this season’s CARS Tour event at Langley.
Both Sellers and Honeycutt are very much alive in the Triple Crown championship fight after scoring top-five finishes at South Boston. Honeycutt currently holds a 3.0 average finish, while Sellers sits at 4.0. A win Saturday night could do both wonders for either driver leading into Martinsville Speedway this September.
The No. 3 is Back
For the first time ever, retired Cup Series star Dale Earnhardt Jr. will race at Langley Speedway. With Carson Kvapil missing the event to compete with the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, JR Motorsports had an open car for the weekend.
After dropping multiple hints throughout the spring and summer months, Earnhardt announced on June 24 that he would be competing in the crown jewel event for the first time.
This will mark the third time in 2024 that Earnhardt has been behind the wheel of a Late Model Stock car and the second new track the two-time Daytona 500 winner has visited. Earnhardt ran at New River All-American Speedway for the first time back in April.
While Earnhardt has yet to find victory lane since his return to Late Model Stock car racing back in 2022, he’s been close several times, most notably at Florence Motor Speedway.
After a strong third-place run at Florence’s Icebreaker back in February, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Earnhardt find himself in contention late in the running at Langley. The two tracks share many of the old, worn out characteristics that the NASCAR Hall of Famer has had great success with in the past.
Where to Find Hampton Heat
If you aren’t planning to be in attendance at Langley Speedway this Saturday, you can watch all the action live on FloRacing. Coverage starts at 4:15 p.m. ET with Late Model Stock car qualifying. The 200-lap main event is set to get underway at approximately 8:45 p.m. ET.
Chase began working with Frontstretch in the spring of 2023 as a news writer, while also helping fill in for other columns as needed. Chase is now the main writer and reporter for Frontstretch.com's CARS Tour coverage, a role which began late in 2023.ย Aside from racing, some of Chase's other hobbies include time in the outdoors hunting and fishing, and keeping up with all things Philadelphia sports related.