Short Track Weekly: The Best Moments of the 2024 Late Model Stock Season

Cheers to you, 2024.

This year’s Late Model Stock car season has officially come to a close. As we enjoy the holiday season and gear up for 2025, there’s no better time than now to reminisce on an incredible year for short track racing.

The 2024 season saw it all. Fantastic photo finishes. Historic wins. Legends returning. New stars made. One iconic combination finding its way back home to grassroots racing.

There were so many moments we could highlight from this past season, but we’ve chosen eight that stood out above the rest and attempted to rank them.

Doing so was a challenge, but we gave it our best shot. Here are the eight most memorable moments from the 2024 Late Model Stock car season.

8. Late Night Chaos at Hampton Heat

Crazy weather and an even crazier race in one of the discipline’s biggest events landed the 2024 Hampton Heat 200 at No. 8 on our list.

The summer showdown at Langley Speedway is regarded as one of the most physically demanding LMSC races in the country simply due to the scorching Virginia summers that give the race its name.

But this time around, Mother Nature gave us a bit of a curveball.

Heavy rain throughout the day delayed on-track activity by multiple hours, leaving standing water on the racetrack by the time the rains let up.

Race officials could have been forgiven for postponing the event. But with a sold-out crowd and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the field, they elected to race that night. After many hours of track drying, the field did just that.

Fans who stayed were given a treat, with one of the best installments of the Brenden Queen vs. Connor Hall rivalry to date. The two heavyweight hometown heroes went toe-to-toe throughout the night, with Queen getting the better of Hall in the closing laps to take the checkered flag in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Earnhardt came home a respectable fifth at night’s end and the party at Langley lasted all night long. Everyone got their money’s worth in a race that will be remembered for years to come.

7. Lee Pulliam Returns to Racing at Martinsville

The Martinsville 300 has the distinct ability to both create legends and apparently bring them out of retirement, too. LMSC legend Lee Pulliam‘s return to the driver’s seat made it a race to remember.

While Pulliam now spends his time as a team owner for Lee Pulliam Performance, he was once the hottest driver in Late Model Stock racing for nearly a decade.

When it was announced that his regular wheelman Queen would be racing at Kansas Speedway in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, it became obvious Queen would have to miss the 300 at Martinsville.

The cards all fell the right way, bringing the four-time NASCAR Regional National Champion back out for a rare return to racing in his own car at Martinsville.

A two-time Martinsville winner, Pulliam had a solid showing in his return, finishing second in a heat race and running top-15 all race long. He came home 13th at night’s end.

In doing so, Pulliam fulfilled a promise he made to his father, who battled an illness earlier in the year.

“I told him ‘If you promise me you’re gonna fight and get over this,” Pulliam said. “I promise you we’ll go race at Martinsville one more time.”

6. Electric Finish for CARS Tour at Caraway

In a fitting night given the race’s name, the CARS Tour Firecracker 265 on July 2 had fireworks both on and off the racetrack.

Those theatrics, along with one of the best LMSC finishes in recent history, make the race worthy of landing at No. 6.

With 15 laps to go at Caraway Speedway, Hall seemed to be driving away with the win. But that changed suddenly when a late caution bunched the field back up with just eight laps remaining.

Hall had used the bumper to get around Carson Kvapil earlier in the night, so Kvapil returned the favor on the ensuing restart. Both cars went sliding up the track, opening the door for Brent Crews and William Byron – yes, that William Byron – to join the battle. From there, the gloves were off.

With six lead changes among three leaders and a walk-off bump-and-run in the final eight laps, Caraway provided perhaps the most exciting eight laps of short track racing on the year.

In the end, it was Crews who moved Hall in the final corner to pick up his second win of the season in an instant classic.

5. Huffman Vs. Grady Leads to Brawl at Hickory

Who doesn’t love a good fight?? That’s exactly what we have at No. 5, with some A+ soundbites to accompany it.

The CARS Tour made its annual late summer stop at Hickory Motor Speedway for the track’s signature throwback event, which proved to be a wild one.

During the race, Landon Huffman and Andrew Grady made contact on the exit of turn 2, which spent Grady spinning off the nose of Huffman’s car and down into the inside wall.

Grady wasn’t happy and promptly threw his Hans device at Huffman’s car as he made his way to the ambulance. He then gave Frontstretch one of the greatest post-race quotes of all time.

“In the words of Denny Hamlin, Landon Huffman, you’re a hack,” Grady said. “It’s no wonder you lost your ride with the No. 22. … You’re a trash panda, bud.”

Huffman finished out his race. After some drama with Kvapil and the No. 8 team, gave Frontstretch his response to Grady’s comments.

“If he wants to call me a hack, that’s fine,” Huffman said. “I’ve got a couple championships and about 40 Late Model Stock wins he can suck on.”

Grady was busy at the time. His team was in a brawl down at the end of pit road with members of the Chad Bryant Racing No. 77 team and others. In the end, Grady received a three-race suspension.

Huffman, though? He benefited from Grady’s quote, landing a sponsorship from the Rocket City Trash Pandas, a Minor League Baseball team.

4. Three-Wide Thriller For CARS Tour at Langley

For the second time on the list, we get a Langley Speedway appearance. This time, it’s the closest three-car finish in CARS Tour history.

Hall had already taken the white flag and was seemingly on his way to win No. 1 on the season. But a caution for a crash in turn 4 set up one final overtime restart for Hall to navigate.

When the green flag flew, Kvapil immediately challenged Hall for the lead from the outside. As Hall cleared Kvapil off turn 4 and took the white flag, Kvapil crossed over and dove to his inside heading toward turn 1.

The two race door-to-door down in to turn three, but Kvapil sliding up the track into Hall opened the door for third-place runner Crews on the bottom. The trio powered off turn 4 side-by-side, with Hall barely grabbing the win from the outside lane.

Officially, Hall beat Crews to the line by 0.007 seconds, with Kvapil just 0.064 seconds away from the win in third. They made for one of the coolest photo finishes you’ll ever see in Late Model Stock racing.

3. Kvapil Finally Scores Elusive Martinsville Win

We mentioned earlier that Martinsville can both create legends, and in Pulliam’s case bring them out of retirement.

At No. 3, we have an example of the former.

By the time teams rolled in to Martinsville in the final week of September, it was pretty well known that Kvapil was moving on from the discipline in 2025, though nothing had been made official.

The two-time defending CARS Tour champion at the time, Kvapil had repeatedly made it clear that Martinsville was the last big race he had circled for Late Model racing, one he really wanted to win.

After coming oh-so-close over the past two years, Kvapil finally secured the grandfather clock in this year’s ValleyStar Credit Union 300 at Martinsville. To do so, he had to survive multiple late race restarts. But unlike in years past, it was meant to be in 2024.

“It’s just such a big deal,” Kvapil told Frontstretch at Martinsville. “This race is just so prestigious, it’s been going on for so long. So many great racers have won it. To be able to add my name to that list, it hasn’t sunk in yet, but it’s awesome.”

Just days later, it was announced Kvapil will compete full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for JR Motorsports in 2025. The Martinsville win was the stamp of approval on a well-deserved promotion.

2. ‘Butterbean’ Queen Captures CARS Tour Title

The zMAX CARS Tour isn’t just the flagship series of Late Model Stock car racing, it’s one of the most competitive tours in the entire country. So winning the series championship is among the top accomplishments in short track racing.

The driver who claimed that championship in 2024 was none other than fan favorite Queen, aka ‘Butterbean.’

The front half of the 2024 season wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for Queen and the Lee Pulliam Performance team. The Virginian struggled at times and was hit-or-miss up until the summer months.

But with their backs against the wall, Queen and the team put together a flawless string of races to claw back into the championship fight.

After crashing out of the aforementioned Caraway race, Queen’s title hopes seemed to be over. From that point on, Queen closed his season with eight consecutive top-five finishes, turning into the model of consistency.

While the team never found victory lane during the stretch, an average finish of 4.0 in those eight races was enough for Queen to claw back and steal the championship away from Hall at season’s end.

“I don’t think there’s anything sweeter than that right now in late model racing,” Queen told Frontstretch after winning the title. “I won those championships at Langley and they were special, but I think this one right here has got to be a little bit bigger.”

Queen will move on to the ARCA Menards Series in 2025, with Bean Nation ready to follow him every step of the way.

1. Dale Jr. Reunites With the Bud 8 at Florence

You may have been asking, what could have possibly been a bigger moment than crowing the CARS Tour champion? Well, here’s your answer.

A reunion 17 years in the making. The famous Budweiser No. 8 returned to competition at Florence Motor Speedway in the South Carolina 400 this past November.

There were rumblings of this return throughout the summer, as Earnhardt gained the rights to the stylized No. 8 font from his days racing at Dale Earnhardt Incorporated. Still, the thought seemed too good to be true.

But it wasn’t. For the first time since 2007, Earnhardt climbed into the Bud No. 8 to the delight of the South Carolina crowd last month. Florence filled up above capacity with record attendance and got to watch Earnhardt put on a show.

After a poor qualifying result, Earnhardt needed a provisional to even start the 250-lap crown jewel event, mired back in 40th at the drop of the green.

But the deep starting spot didn’t keep him down for long. By the lap 125 halfway break, the figurative roof had exploded off of Florence as Earnhardt had driven the No. 8 from 40th to second.

Unfortunately for Earnhardt, his race winning bid came to an early end with a mechanical failure while running second. But even without the end result, lifelong memories were made for many, whether they were seeing the car for the first time, or experiencing the nostalgia of their childhood Sundays.

Earnhardt will likely run the car again sometime in the future, but the first time will always be remembered above the rest. And it’s not often that a late model diecast outsells every NASCAR diecast on offer.

That Bud was for you, 2024. Here’s to 2025.