RALEIGH, N.C.- The zMAX CARS Tour was back in action this past Saturday (Aug. 24) night, this time at the shortest track on the schedule: Wake County Speedway, known as ‘Americas Favorite Bullring.’
As the only quarter-mile track on the schedule, Wake County presents a unique set of challenges for drivers compared to the rest of the season. Landen Lewis made the most of the opportunity to pick up his first career CARS Tour victory, but not without controversy.
All eyes were on the Late Model Stock cars at Wake County, where teammates found themselves at odds and the championship battle took another compelling turn.
Here are three takeaways from Saturday’s showdown in North Carolina.
Landen Lewis Breaks Through
The 2024 season hasn’t been kind to the CARS Tour rookie. With a part-time schedule, Lewis had made seven starts leading into Wake County, earning a pedestrian average finish of 15.4 along the way.
Despite two front row starts, including a pole at Hickory Motor Speedway, Lewis had only been able to manage a season-best result of eighth, coming at both New River All-American Speedway and Dominion Raceway.
That all changed Saturday night.
Lewis capitalized on a great car and landed the No. 62 in victory lane for the first time since Kevin Harvick Inc. made its return to the CARS Tour.
After starting eighth, Lewis slowly picked his way through the field, breaking into the top three at lap 46. That was where he ran for the majority of the race from there, until a spin by Landon Huffman brought out the yellow with just 15 laps to go.
On the ensuing restart, Lewis was able to move KHI teammate Brent Crews out of the groove and wrestle the top spot away. He survived one final restart and cruised to his first ever CARS Tour victory from there.
“Like I’ve been telling everybody else, it means a lot to me,” Lewis said afterward. “This is truly a special win for me, my guys, it goes to show you how competitive this series is when you go look at qualifying and you see how close everyone truly is. I qualified eighth and if I’d have been a half-a-tenth faster I’d be sitting second or third, so that’s pretty intense. If you’re three tenths off you’re dead last, so it’s pretty intense of how tight this series is and how good this series is.
“To be able to beat these guys like ‘Butterbean’ (Brenden Queen) and Connor Hall, all those guys that have just been killing us this year, it just means a lot.”
The win didn’t come without controversy. Lewis was disappointed to see Crews night go south after the battle between the two, stating that a conversation would be had for the two to get back on the same page.
“Yeah, there will obviously be a conversation,” Lewis said. “I mean, I work on his car, so there’s got to be a conversation just to get things better and not race like this at the end of the year. I know he’s going for a championship which obviously sucked because I didn’t like seeing that.
“But yeah, there will be a conversation. Obviously it probably won’t be tonight. Just let everything cool down and everyone just kind of relax and then we’ll talk about it for the next race.”
While Lewis is only part-time in the No. 62 this season, nothing is set in stone for 2025. It’s hard to know what could happen moving forward, but winning goes a long way. Should Lewis finish out his CARS Tour season strong, he easily could earn himself a full-time spot for next season.
Oh No, That’s a Teammate…
While Lewis was able to land his KHI car in victory lane, teammate Crews wasn’t as fortunate. The young star entered Wake County just 15 points behind championship leader Hall and was on track to make up even more ground Saturday night.
Crews had the dominant car at Wake County, leading 70 of 125 laps on the night. But his evening went south on a late restart.
He lined up first for it, with teammate Lewis behind. When the green flag flew, Lewis gave Crews a shot going into turn 1 and again into turn 3, trying to get to the inside. The trailing teammate repeated this the following lap, and was finally successful off of turn 4, drawing even with Crews as the race hit 13 laps to go.
Lewis got in hot into turn 1, shoving Crews up out of the groove. The move put Crews three-wide with Queen and Isabella Robusto, where contact from Robusto sent Crews spinning in turn 3.
Crews smacked the outside wall effectively ending his night.
“Yeah, not going to complain to much, I think we had a really dominant racecar,” Crews said. “I just want to give all the glory to god, wouldn’t be able to do this without the great lord above. This Mobil 1 No. 29 Toyota Camry was super fast and that’s all I can say.
“For everybody who watched the race, I’ll give you your point of view on it, take your word over mine. But I felt like we just got pretty badly wrecked there.”
The main frustration for Crews stemmed from being raced so roughly by a teammate.
“Yeah, 1000% I’m going to be honest with you, for sure,” Crews said of his frustration. “(It’s) tough when everybody works in the same shop and works so hard on this thing, just for it to get tore up like that.”
The wreck for Crews resulted in a 14th-place finish, continuing what’s been a feast-or-famine summer for his No. 29 team. In the past five races Crews has won twice, but also been involved in two accidents and endured engine troubles at Hickory.
Crews now finds himself right back in a hole with only four races to make up for it. He’ll likely need to be mistake-free to climb up to the top of the standings.
Solid Night For Title Contenders
While the KHI cars delt with their own drama at the front of the field, it was another solid points night for Queen and Mini Tyrrell while Hall struggled down in 11th.
Queen managed to finish on the podium in third, drawing him ever-so-close to taking back the points lead from Hall as his top-five streak extended to four races. The Virginian seemed to have the fastest car at points in the night, but suffered damage late in the race that hindered him.
“We want to win, but now I think we’ve got to start really thinking about consistency after the points we gained tonight,” Queen admitted. “I’m not sure where the No. 22 finished, but I heard it was back there, so I think we closed it into single digits for sure.”
Tyrrell extended a streak of his own. His fourth-place finish marked four-consecutive top 10s and was his third top five in a row. The consistency has allowed him to close within 30 points of the championship lead.
“It’s always a thought,” Tyrrell said of the championship lead. “I mean we’re close, we’re in it, there’s still plenty of racing left. I just need to keep on finishing well and these guys are gonna have a bad night every once in a while.”
The two title contenders shared their own spirited battle throughout the middle portion of the race, but both ultimately chalked it up to hard racing. It made for a great show – one that could continue moving forward as both drivers remain solidly in the title hunt heading to Florence Motor Speedway.
Drive For Puryear 125 Results
- Landen Lewis
- Treyten Lapcevich
- Brenden Queen
- Mini Tyrrell
- Ryan Millington
- Mason Bailey
- Carson Haislip
- Kade Brown
- Landon Huffman
- Holden Haddock
- Connor Hall
- Clay Jones
- Brandon Pierce
- Brent Crews
- Isabella Robusto
- Buddy Isles Jr.
- Caden Kvapil
- Daniel Vuncannon
- Deac McCaskill
What’s Next?
Both the Pro Late Models and Late Model Stock cars are back in action this Friday night (Aug. 30) at Florence Motor Speedway as a lead in to NASCAR’s Southern 500 weekend. Coverage can be found live on FloRacing.
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. 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.