ROUGEMONT, N.C.- The Orange County high banks never disappoint.
The zMAX CARS Tour made its fourth stop on the 2025 schedule this past Saturday (April 26), this time at Orange County Speedway (OCS). After a hard-fought battle with Layne Riggs through the center portion of the race, 2020 series champion Jared Fryar picked up the win.
🏁 @JaredFryar14 dominates at @OCS_Track in the @CARSTour Folsom Fence Supply 250!#CARSTour pic.twitter.com/vNVPc2rVNO
— FloRacing (@FloRacing) April 27, 2025
While plenty of patch work was done to the track surface in the offseason, it was still the same old worn out Orange County at the end of the day – one of the fastest tracks on the schedule.
From a part-timer in victory lane to a points shakeup and a debuting old star, here are three takeaways from the Folsom Fence Supply 250.
Not Bad For A Part-Timer
The old champ’s still got it.
Fryar hasn’t raced in the CARS Tour full-time since 2021 and it had been nearly two-years since he’d crossed the line first in a CARS Late Model Stock feature. The third-generation racer technically won at Caraway Speedway in 2023, but that victory came after provisional winner Riggs was disqualified days after the race. You had to venture back to the 2022 North-South Shootout at Caraway for the last time Fryar saw the checkered flag first on-track.
That drought is finally over.
Anytime Fryar shows up to the racetrack, he’s a threat to win. The short track ace just needs things to fall his way. On Saturday at OCS, Fryar put all the pieces together and completed a dominant drive to victory.
“It feels so special man,” Fryar told Frontstretch afterward. “These things are very emotional to win, at least for me, not running full-time. To win these races is so tough, like everything has got to go right for you.
“Tonight was a testament of that. We had good tires, a good car, good restarts and things just fell right in order for us to win.”
It’s been a while since Fryar has run the Tour full-time, for a number of reasons. But while it’s not easy to show up on a part-time basis and compete well, Fryar thinks there are bonuses that come with added rest.
“I feel like with the experience that I’ve got it makes it a little bit easier,” Fryar said. “But it’s also good too, like I really enjoy it. I feel like we go to the racetrack fully prepared. We’re well rested and everything is really good. When I ran the Tour full-time (from) 2020 to 2021 it was a grind, man. And we didn’t run 15 to 17 races like they do now. … For us, we don’t have to have that on our shoulders, which makes it easier.”
Any time the No. 14 crew shows up, the car promises to be in contention for the win. Fryar’s performance was a dominant one, leading the entire second half of the race basically unchallenged. It should come as no surprise as he scored his first victory at the track last fall in the Orange Blossom Shootout.
Fryar’s win puts him at five total through his CARS career, moving him to sole possession of eighth on the Tour’s all-time win list with a two-race buffer on those behind. The No. 14 team will be back in action with the CARS Tour at Langley Speedway to end the month of May.
Hello, Newman
Welcome to the CARS Tour, Rocket Man.
Ryan Newman took his best shot with the CARS Tour at Orange County, driving for Matt Piercy Racing in Tristan McKee‘s absence. All it took was a little persuasion from Dale Earnhardt Jr. and a High Rock Vodka logo slapped on the hood.
Newman had a solid showing, qualifying 11th and keeping his nose clean to bring home a 14th-place finish at the end of the night. The 2008 Daytona 500 champion had plenty of positive things to say about his experience afterward.
“I did have fun,” Newman told Frontstretch. “It was pretty intense, I’m pretty hot and sweaty and I’m glad this wasn’t a day race. … I wish we could have done better, I think if I wouldn’t have been my first race we had a car to be a little bit better. Struggled with just being a little bit free on exit the whole race.
“This is intense, hard racing. I expected to save a little bit of tire but nobody saved anything today. I think we finished in front of some guys that are championship contenders so I’m happy about the result, but obviously would have liked to have been in the top five.”
Newman has always been a Modified guy – he regularly competes in the SMART Modified Tour now that his Cup career is over – so a move to racecars with fenders was a change. The biggest shift for the Hoosier was the lack of pit strategy and importance of track position.
“I think we run a lot harder here in the CARS Tour,” Newman said. “Just because of the tires, the lack of strategy, there’s no tire change, no pit. A little bit of the competition cautions is the same, but ultimately you kind of have to keep track position the entire race.
“You never have an opportunity to stay out and jump some spots. You never have an opportunity to put a tire on and work on your car. Those are probably the biggest differences.”
Would Newman ever return to the CARS Tour in the future? It’s possible. Both the CARS Tour and SMART Modified Tour will meet at North Wilkesboro to end their respective 2025 seasons in October.
It’s hard to know for sure. But we could see the Rocket Man back again sometime this year.
A Big Time Points Shake Up
Take everything you probably expected from the running order at Orange County and flip it upside down. That’s essentially what happened with the championship fight on Saturday.
The two fastest cars of the year and their title-contending drivers, Connor Hall and Mini Tyrrell, struggled. Others like Ronnie Bassett Jr. and Landon Huffman found pace and took advantage.
It was a weird night for Hall and JR Motorsports. The points leader qualified 13th, got spun on lap 5 and never recovered. He didn’t suffer any damage to the racecar in the spin. The group just lacked speed this weekend.
“Getting spun around wasn’t very helpful,” Hall told Frontstretch. “That hurt our track position even more than I hurt it in qualifying. I don’t really know what happened as far as there, I thought I was pretty darn low on the racetrack and the car on my outside just kept coming down.
“I’ve only raced here once, I didn’t have really a lot to go off of from last year. It’s not a very good excuse but I came up short on my end.”
Tyrrell’s night was comparatively competitive. He charged forward early before stalling just outside the top-10. But a late race crash derailed any chances Tyrrell had to make up ground on Hall in the early title race.
“I tried to watch it back but the camera didn’t catch it.” Tyrrell told Frontstretch of the crash. “I don’t know if I just got into the No. 27, I felt like he maybe came down just a little bit on me, which again, I’m not blaming him it’s not his fault. I felt like once I hit him, I couldn’t get off of him.
“Just devastated. I’m really gonna feel really bad if anyone anyone else was involved that had nothing to do with it.”
A bad night for both the No. 81 and No. 88 group brings the championship fight closer together just as a busy month of May draws near. The pair were bound to have a bad race at some point. They just happened to come together at Orange County.
What’s Next?
The zMAX CARS Tour will be back in action this coming Saturday night, May 3, at Ace Speedway. Both the Pro Late Models and Late Model Stock cars will be in action with coverage 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.