NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — The 2024 zMAX CARS Tour season came to a close on Saturday night (Oct. 19) with championship night at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
The CARS Tour late models were a key component of North Wilkesboro’s revival in 2022, and the historic track has been a part of the CARS schedule ever since, even hosting two races this season. The first date of 2024 was supposed to be in May, the week of the NASCAR Cup Series’ All-Star Race, but heavy rain delayed the race to August. This year marks the first time CARS has visited North Wilkesboro twice in the same season, with the second race crowning the champions of the Pro Late Model and Late Model Stock Car series.
Winning at the nearly 80-year-old track can put a driver on the radar of race fans everywhere, but taking home the championship hardware was the bigger objective for a handful of drivers Saturday night.
From a championship drama to nonstop, chaotic wrecks, here are three takeaways from the ECMD 125 at North Wilkesboro.
Butterbean Wins the Title Fight Against Langley Foe
Entering Saturday night, Brenden ‘Butterbean’ Queen led Connor Hall by nine points in the Late Model Stock standings. Queen was also awarded a bonus points for winning the most poles on the season, so Hall essentially had to finish 10 spots ahead of Queen to win the title.
The Late Model Stock championship coming down to Queen and Hall was poetic, as the duo both cut their teeth racing together at Langley Speedway. Through the years, they became fierce rivals, with that feud extending into the CARS Tour many times this season.
Hall did win the battle between the two at North Wilkesboro, finishing ahead of Queen in fourth. But Queen took the checkered flag one spot behind Hall in fifth to hang onto the points lead.
“Ah man, I don’t think there’s anything sweeter than that [winning the CARS Tour title] right now in late model racing,” Queen told Frontstretch. “I won those [track] championships at Langley, and they were special, but I think this one right here has got to be a little bit bigger, just because of being on a touring series and how hard it is to win in this series.”
Hall had his work cut out for him from the drop of the green flag, as he qualified 10th to Queen’s second. On one of the early restarts, the No. 22 machine suffered nose damage when a stack-up occurred from Andrew Grady not getting going.
Meanwhile, Queen suffered his own setback. His No. 03’s throttle spring broke fairly early in the 125-lapper. Queen had lift the throttle back up with his foot each time he lifted until the Lee Pulliam Performance team could get it repaired during the next competition caution. Despite that issue, Queen never fell outside of the top 10, so his title hopes were never in question.
Hall survived the attrition to get back into the top 10 and even field a late rally to pass Queen and climb into the top five. But even if the Nelson Motorsports ace had won the race, he would not have scored enough points to pass Queen. Hall didn’t point to this North Wilkesboro race as the reason he lost the championship, but rather the one back in August when he got caught up in a wreck and finished 18th.
“The first Wilkesboro, I wish we would’ve had this car,” Hall told Frontstretch. “I think that probably would’ve put us far enough forward to stay out of that wreck and be on the other end of this. … We lost like 20 points that night. Tonight, I think it was like eight or nine short, so just quick math. I wish we would’ve been better here and Tri-County, and I really think it would’ve been a different deal.”
For Queen, his trademark has been to celebrate his wins by going to Waffle House afterward. But the race ended just shy of 1 a.m. ET Sunday morning, and he and owner Lee Pulliam were leaving for Maine at 5 a.m. ET. So the Waffle House celebration will have to wait.
Jones Thwarts Kvapil’s Happily Ever After
While the championship battle was going on, Carson Kvapil was at the front of the field trying to end his full-time CARS career with one last trip to victory lane. Kvapil will compete full time for current team JR Motorsports next year in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, making Saturday night the end of an era for the two-time Late Model Stock champion.
So after winning the pole at North Wilkesboro and leading the majority of the laps, it seemed like Kvapil would get to ride off into the sunset by winning his final CARS race for now.
Unfortunately for Kvapil, Conner Jones had other plans.
Kvapil’s car got tighter as the night went on while Jones’ car came to life. Following a competition caution with just under 25 laps to go, the No. 44 driver struck on the restart. What followed was a number of slide jobs and crossovers between Jones and Kvapil, with Mini Tyrrell almost making it three-wide from third.
When the dust settled, Jones had the lead. He proceeded to gap the field in the remaining laps en route to his second CARS win in a row.
“I think we just were racing really hard,” Jones told Frontstretch. “I think it was just us trying to win. It’s been a few races since Carson’s won, and I think he’s ready to get back in the winner’s circle. It’s been a week since I’ve won, but it’s been two years since I’ve won anything else. So this has definitely been on my mind for a while.”
Jones said North Wilkesboro was one of the “bucket-list races” to win.
Kvapil finished second. He was disappointed to fall short of victory afterward, but happy when reflecting back on his time in the series.
“I really wanted to win the last race with these guys,” Kvapil told Frontstretch. “Sometimes, it just doesn’t work out.
“We’ve had some really impressive success here the past few years with this JR Motorsports crew,” he continued, adding that “it’s been a really fun ride. I feel like I’ve learned a bunch and made some great friends along the way.”
Sweet Night for Honeycutt, Sour Night for Davis
Speaking of successful sendoffs before a driver moves on to what’s next in their career, Kaden Honeycutt won the race and the championship in the Pro Late Model division earlier Saturday night. The Texas native will compete full time for Niece Motorsports next year in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Now he’ll be able to enter those ranks with a CARS championship trophy.
Honeycutt entered Saturday’s race second in the standings, six points behind Spencer Davis. But an early incident left Davis with a major hole to climb out of.
On lap 5 of the 100-lap event, Davis dove underneath pole-sitter TJ DeCaire, but the No. 29 car bottomed out and got into the side of DeCaire. The contact gave Davis a flat right-rear tire and damaged the track bar.
“I can’t help it,” Davis told Frontstretch. “I made a mistake.”
Davis then stopped on the track to bring out the yellow flag, which the CARS Tour penalized him two laps for doing. The No. 29 crew replaced the tire and track bar and got Davis back out, but the damage was done. He could never get back on the lead lap and finished 14th.
“These guys around me did a fantastic job, and even when things got real dark there about lap 10, they fought deep,” Davis said. “They didn’t give up. I was very blue, but they weren’t.
“It’s a testament, right? We came here, and all the way up to the less-than-spectacular finish, I think we had something like a 3.7-3.9 average finish. That’s something you can’t take away from us. We fought through a lot of adversity.”
Despite coming up shy of the drivers title, Davis’ team won the owners championship.
Honeycutt’s team did not inform their driver of Davis’ problems, preferring that he focus on his own race. He didn’t find out about it until he was informed Davis had received a free pass.
“After that, I was like, I want to win, but I definitely don’t want to jeopardize the championship if that means giving up the win,” Honeycutt told Frontstretch. “I thought we did a really good job of managing that on both.”
There were only two moments Honeycutt’s win and championship looked in question. One was when Tristan McKee got into him to take the lead, with the No. 47 losing a few spots. Honeycutt chased McKee down under the next caution to show his displeasure at the move.
The next dicey moment came on the ensuing restart, when McKee was involved in a wreck with Gio Ruggiero. Honeycutt narrowly dodged it to retake the lead.
DeCaire tracked down Honeycutt in the closing laps and the two had a clean battle, with Honeycutt holding on for the checkered flag and the Pro Late Model championship.
ECMD 125 Results
Late Model Stock
- 44 Conner Jones
- 8 Carson Kvapil
- 81 Mini Tyrrell
- 22 Connor Hall
- 03 Brenden Queen
- 82 Connor Mosack
- 7M Tristan McKee
- 17 Kaden Honeycutt
- 15 Ryan Millington
- 2 Brandon Pierce
- 29 Brent Crews
- 55 Isabella Robusto -1
- 4 Dylon Wilson -1
- 7P Casey Pierce -6
- 57 Landon Huffman – OUT
- 04 Ronnie Bassett Jr. – OUT
- 2W Ryan Wilson – OUT
- 45 Parker Eatmon – OUT
- 00 Chase Burrow – OUT
- 71B Jake Bollman – OUT
- 77 Treyten Lapcevich – OUT
- 26 Peyton Sellers – OUT
- 77W Trevor Ward – OUT
- 70 Travis Baity – OUT
- 1 Andrew Grady – OUT
- 11 Buddy Isles Jr. – OUT
- 28 Landon S. Huffman – OUT
- 71 Aaron Donnelly – DNS
Pro Late Model
- 47 Kaden Honeycutt
- 15 T.J. DeCaire
- 67 Cameron Bolin
- 00 Jimmy Renfrew Jr.
- 88 Max Reaves
- 51 Travis Braden
- 17 Hudson Bulger
- 65 Tyler Tanner
- 97 Dylan Garner
- 43H Joshua Horniman
- 35 Caden Kvapil
- 8C Terri Crider
- 22 Dusty Garus -1
- 29 Spencer Davis -2
- 6 Tristan McKee – OUT
- 24 Gio Ruggiero – OUT
- 99 Edward Cheslak – OUT
- 8 Tate Fogleman – OUT
- 16 Tim Sozio – OUT
- 24B Lanie Buice – OUT
- 33 Daniel Webster – OUT
- 6B Brandon Lopez – OUT
- 44 Logan Jones – OUT
- 28 Nathan Gregg – OUT
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020. Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.