Short Track Weekly: Spring 2025 ASA/CARS Power Rankings

We’re well into the spring of 2025, temperatures are on the rise and summer lies just on the horizon. As hard as it is to believe, that means over a quarter of the late model racing season is behind us.

Between the zMAX CARS Tour and ASA STARS National Tour, championship battles are already starting to take shape – some closer than others. The CARS Tour is already five races into its 15 race season, while ASA has completed three of its 12-race schedule.

Despite racing in the same region for a good portion of the year, the two rarely cross paths and we rarely see cross-over drivers. So we thought we’d try something fun – why not create some cross-over content?

This week’s edition of Short Track Weekly gives us our first power rankings of the year, with a combined list for those in the Late Model Stock car (LMSC) and Super Late Model (SLM) worlds.

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10. Ronnie Bassett Jr.

We’ll kick off the list with one of the last true family men in the zMAX CARS Tour. The Bassett racing team has been a mainstay in the Tour for years. Bassett is off to a solid start in 2025, one that sees his group just 26 points out of the points lead.

Bassett has consistently brought speed to the track in 2025. The issue has been finishing the deal. After coming home third at New River All American Speedway and sixth at Wake County Speedway, Bassett watched another potential top-five run at Cordele Motor Speedway get destroyed on a late-race restart when Tristan McKee missed a shift ahead of him. If not for that and his accident at Ace Speedway this past weekend, we could be talking about Bassett as the CARS Tour points leader heading into the summer. -Chase Folsom

9. Bubba Pollard

You just can’t leave the modern-day Super Late Model legend that is Bubba Pollard off of a power rankings list. But he’s further back than you might have guessed going into the year. Pollard has taken time to find his footing in 2025. But the Georgia native has seemingly unlocked some speed in his newfound VanDoorn Racing Development chassis. 

Pollard scored a notable victory at Mobile International Speedway with the Southern Super Series a few weeks ago. The victory came as a reprieve after a tough stretch of races for Pollard, where the SLM ace couldn’t seem to catch a break.

The results haven’t always been there. But Pollard and his crew seem to have adapted and shown real potential for not only their operation, but VanDoorn chassis, which have struggled in the Deep South for years. With the Mobile victory and a sixth-place effort last time out at Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville, it will be interesting to see if Pollard can carry the momentum into the next stretch of his season.
-Reid Scott

8. Carson Brown

Brown is another driver who has come off of an impressive stretch of races, with a few ‘what-ifs’ coming along the way. The SLM rookie is coming off a third-place effort at Nashville last weekend, a ninth-place result at Mobile in April and a runner-up run at Five Flags Speedway the night before that. All of those races came in regional Southern Super Series competition. 

Brown also came close to usurping Cole Butcher – we’ll get to him later – for a victory when the ASA STARS National Tour visited Five Flags Speedway back in March, with Brown leading the opening sequence of that race before a pit road penalty and mechanical issue ended his chances. Brown currently sits fifth in the ASA STARS standings, looking to chase down Gavan Boschele for Rookie of the Year honors. 
-Reid Scott

7. Matt Craig

While overall consistency plays a huge part in these power rankings, so do recent trends and flashes of speed. Craig has had a hot hand of late, coming off of a recent stretch of races that showcased noteworthy speed from the North Carolina native. 

In his most recent run at Nashville’s North/South Super Late Model Challenge, Craig managed to secure a second-place finish behind the ever-dominant Butcher. Before that, Craig took third when the Southern Super Series visited Mobile. A pair of podium finishes has Craig on a promising trend as he heads to one of his home tracks, Hickory Motor Speedway, in just a few weeks with the ASA STARS National Tour. -Reid Scott

6. Gavan Boschele

This young gun has proven a lot in a short amount of time in 2025. In winning the opening race of the ASA STARS National Tour season at New Smyrna Speedway, Boschele started the year off by showing that he can compete for victories and potentially championships right out of the gate. 

Boschele currently sits second in the ASA STARS National Tour standings behind Butcher, proving to be the most consistent overall competition to his teammate through the ASA STARS season to date. With the amount of speed Wilson Motorsports has invested into Butcher’s operation, it’s not hard to see why Boschele is the next fastest wheelman in the Super Late Model scene. -Reid Scott

5. Landon Huffman

It’s well known that Huffman is a fan favorite off the racetrack. What has been a pleasant surprise is just how fast the North Carolinian and Carroll Speedshop have been on-track with the CARS Tour. The team missed the boat at New River, only managing a 15th-place finish. But since then, the team has been firing on all cylinders.

What seemed to be a sure-fire podium at Wake County fell apart thanks to some late contact with Ryan Millington that led to Huffman being sent to the rear. The YouTube favorite avoided similar issues at Cordele, securing a strong top-three run. Both Orange County and Ace saw Huffman fight through the field for two more solid results.

That consistent pace has lifted Huffman to fourth in the series standings. If he and the Claremont posse remain hot heading into the summer, a win may be just around the corner. -Chase Folsom

4. Kade Brown

Absolutely nobody has flown under the radar more in 2025 than Brown. Yet five races into the CARS Tour season, he sits third in the standings, just five points away from the series points lead. The key to this team’s success? Consistency. Brown and the R&S Race Cars No. 4 team have yet to finish outside the top 10 in the season’s first five events.

What’s crazy to think is that things could somehow be better for this group. Brown ran out of fuel running third inside five laps to go at New River and was caught up in an accident early on at Ace while running around the top five. After a pretty miserable 2024, a strong start with his new team is exactly what Brown needed in 2025. A series-best 5.2 average finish so far lands Brown in fourth on the list and right in the midst of the CARS Tour’s early championship battle.
-Chase Folsom

3. Landen Lewis

It’s hard not to reward the guy who just whooped the field a few days ago, so the most recent winner in the CARS Tour lands at number three in the power rankings: Landen Lewis.

Kevin Harvick Incorporated’s star driver is a hard worker. More often than not you’ll find him at the track in a crew uniform, working on his own car or Keelan Harvick‘s No. 62 Pro Late Model when he’s not racing.

That’s impressive by itself. But when he puts the fire suit on, the results have been equally fantastic. Lewis has three top fives and four top 10s through five races, including a dominant win last time out at Ace. The team had a little extra help at Ace, courtesy of NASCAR Cup Series title-winning crew chief Rodney Childers. If he sticks around moving forward, Lewis just might climb to the top of these rankings. -Chase Folsom

2. Connor Hall

As well as the others have run, Connor Hall is still the CARS championship favorite until proven otherwise.

As expected, the combination of last year’s title runner-up and the powerhouse JR Motorsports has been a winning one. Hall has two victories and three top-two finishes through five races. When he and JRM are at their best, they’re nearly untouchable.

The problem is that the group’s A-game has gone missing a couple time so far. Hall’s other two finishes this season were a miserable 18th-place night at Orange County, and a three-incident race at Ace that ended in 11th. Had Hall not suffered a flat tire while leading at Ace, we could be having an entirely different discussion, but that isn’t how the cards fell.

But even with a few setbacks, Hall’s still the top dog in the CARS Tour thus far. His performances at New River and Cordele were stellar, although not unchallenged. When the team seemed lost early on at Wake County, Hall fought his way through the field to score second.

This new pairing is already showing promise. The group just needs to figure out the bugs. Once they do, they’re going to be difficult to beat. -Chase Folsom

1. Cole Butcher

It’s not even close.

No one in the Super Late Model world – or Late Model Stock world, for that matter – has anything for the seemingly-unbeatable combination of Butcher and Wilson Motorsports. The pair have not only won a lot, but have dominated almost every race they’ve entered in 2025. 

Butcher is coming off a flag-to-flag victory in the Southern Super Series North/South Super Late Model Challenge at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. He’s won two of the three ASA STARS National Tour races to this point of the year, along with three regional victories in the ASA Southern Super Series. Butcher also leads the points standings in both tours by significant margins. 

It’s still early, but Butcher’s been a man on a mission in 2025. The Canadian wheelman is coming off a 2024 season which left him wanting more after a heart condition left him sidelined for a significant stretch of the year.

With those health issues now out of the way, Butcher is here to do one thing and one thing only: dominate the competition. So far, he’s been doing just that – with no signs of stopping anytime soon. -Reid Scott