Mini Tyrrell went wire-to-wire Saturday at Wake County Speedway in Raleigh, N.C., to earn his first win in the zMAX CARS Tour since 2021.
The Virginian started on the pole and led all 125 laps as the CARS Tour hit the shortest track on the schedule. Tyrell fended off multiple challengers and survived a slew of late-race restarts to win in dominating fashion.
“This one just speaks volumes for this race team, it’s been a while since we’ve been in victory lane, but I’m just so proud of my team,” Tyrrell told FloRacing. “This one was hard fought, well deserved. We’ve been working so hard, we had such a great year last year, we just never could capitalize.”
While Tyrrell dominated up front, there was plenty of contact in a classic bullring race that generated cautions and shuffled the field many times behind him.
They started early. The first caution of the night came on lap 15, when Carson Haislip and Lanie Buice became entangled and traveled up into the turn 1 wall. But the chaos really set off late in the race, with under 20 laps to go, when Conner Jones suffered a tire issue that stopped him on the frontstretch and brought out the yellow flag.
Madness ensued after that. On the following restart, Tristan McKee, who was lined up alongside Tyrrell on the front row, spun off the bumper of Holden Haddock. Shortly after the ensuing restart Landon Huffman made contact with Ryan Millington, who had raced into second place. Millington spun and Huffman was then sent to the back of the pack due to his involvement. That generated another start, which led to the last incident of the night as Clay Jones went around at the exit of turn 2 with three laps remaining.
That would be the last caution. Tyrrell held on with another strong restart to close out the race, with points leader Connor Hall finishing second and Doug Barnes recovering from an early spin to take third.
Kade Brown and defending Wake County winner Landen Lewis completed the top five. Ronnie Bassett Jr., Chad McCumbee, Donovan Strauss, Brandon Pierce and Dylon Wilson rounded out the top 10. Basset Jr, Brown, and Strauss have all gone two-for-two with top tens to open the CARS Tour season.
There were many comers and goers tonight as the cautions altered the field. For a large portion of the race it was Jones trailing Tyrrell, weaving through lapped traffic up until the tire issue that ended his night. Huffman was also in the mix and ran second periodically up until the penalty for contact with Millington. McKee and Haddock had also spent time in the top five before their incident late in the race.
The zMAX CARS Tour returns April 12, when the field head’s to Georgia’s Cordele Motor Speedway. Coverage will again come from FloRacing.
Accent Imaging 125 Results
- 81 Mini Tyrrell
- 88 Connor Hall
- 88B Doug Barnes Jr
- 4 Kade Brown
- 29 Landen Lewis
- 04 Ronnie Bassett Jr
- 16 Chad McCumbee
- 45 Donovan Strauss
- 2 Brandon Pierce
- 32 Dylon Wilson
- 15H Holden Haddock
- 57 Landon Huffman
- 15 Ryan Millington
- 1J Clay Jones
- 11 Buddy Isles Jr
- 00 Chase Burrow -2
- 05 Mason Bailey -2
- 28 Landon S. Huffman -4
- 7 Tristan McKee -11
- 44 Conner Jones -OUT
- 03 Lanie Buice- OUT
- 08 Deac McCaskill – OUT
- 22 Carson Loftin- OUT
- 4E Parker Eatmon- OUT
- 1 Andrew Grady- OUT
- 08H Carson Haislip- OUT
- Aaron Donnelly- OUT
Logan Kendall joined the Frontstretch team in 2025 as the Tuesday News Writer and fills in other roles as needed. He resides in the Finger Lakes region of New York and spends his free time writing as a hobby creatively and is a self published author.
Logan can be found on X @LoganKendall48