With just three races to go in 2025, the zMAX CARS Tour made its way to South Boston Speedway this past Saturday (Sept. 13) night for what has become one of the must-see races on the Tour.
Saturday night was no different, as Kaden Honeycutt survived a chaotic final 25 laps to pick up his first CARS Late Model Stock win in nearly three years.
🏁 @KadenWHoneycutt survives the late race restart to win with the @CARSTour at @SoBoSpeedway57!#CARSTour pic.twitter.com/7pYwrbjomL
— FloRacing (@FloRacing) September 14, 2025
While Honeycutt got the flag and the trophy, the real story was what happened before he took the checkered flag. There were tempers flaring, title-altering crashes and drivers who just flat out had enough.
South Boston never fails to deliver an exciting show. Here are three takeaways from the 2025 Auto’s By Nelson Race Night.
The Race For the Lead Gone Wrong
Out of all the guys in the CARS Tour pit area, few are harder to anger than Mini Tyrrell.
Those who know Tyrrell know the easygoing, fun loving guy behind the wheel of the No. 81 who, above all else, races fair on track – even in the toughest of spots. He’s not the guy to put a fender to you for no reason or the guy to place blame when he’s in the wrong.
However, what we’ve seen in 2025 is that competitors should race him the way they expect to get raced. Because if you use him up, he’s going to return the favor.
That is exactly what happened Saturday night with Tristan McKee.
The leader goes around at @SoBoSpeedway57 late in the race!@CARSTour #CARSTour pic.twitter.com/5pMe4Mtw9z
— FloRacing (@FloRacing) September 14, 2025
Tyrrell wrestled the lead away from McKee on a restart with 22 laps to go. McKee fought back to the inside, made pretty significant contact with Tyrrell on two laps in succession and retook the lead with 16 laps to go.
In the following corner, Tyrrell dove to the bottom side of turn 3, got into the left rear of McKee and sent the No. 7 spinning. Was the incident intentional? Who knows, neither driver will ever admit to any intent whether there was any or not.
However, it sure looks like a classic case of ‘race me the way you want to be raced,’ and patience goes out the window when those moments happen inside 20 laps to go.
“I mean it’s a bad pass on my part,” Tyrrell said. “A pass on the entry of the corner is not a great pass, I’m aware of that. But, racing for the win and I was there, I couldn’t check up, we’re both entering the corner as hard as we can. It just seemed like he pinched me and I just couldn’t slow up so I got into his left rear too hard.
“Just wish he could’ve done things a little differently, just wish I could have done things a little differently.”
“I ran him up a little bit,” McKee told Frontstretch. “Most of it was clean, got into him once or twice. Then he just kind of got into the back of me. It’s just kind of hard racing. I’m not too worried about it. Obviously, it kind of sucks to be that close to a win and have that good of a car and get it taken away a little bit.”
Some, including the Matt Piercy Racing team, took issue with the turn 3 incident. But in all honesty it’s a classic case of aggressive driving gone bad. When one driver uses another up, patience can quickly run out.
Even if there was zero intent from Tyrrell, he’s not going to feel nearly as bad about the incident given the events that transpired before. It’s the natural reaction from a driver.
Will this carry over into the final two races? It’ll be something to watch for. The MPR team suggested it might, but time will tell.
The Drought Is Finally Over For Honeycutt
It’s been a long time coming for Honeycutt to find Late Model Stock victory lane again with the CARS Tour.
Nearly three years, to be exact.
It doesn’t seem like that long ago thanks to the success Honeycutt has had on the Pro Late Model side, winning multiple races and picking up the championship a year ago.
Yet to find his last CARS LMSC win, you’d have to go all the way back to October 2022 at Ace Speedway. So yeah, it’s been quite the dry spell.
There were plenty of times it seemed like the drought was about to end. Close calls at Tri-County Speedway in 2023 and Hickory Motor Speedway this year come to mind. But Saturday was the night that the victory showers finally came in South Boston.
It was the contact between Tyrrell and McKee that propelled Honeycutt to the top spot, an incident that Honeycutt saw as Tyrrell ‘setting the example’ for what to expect when the racing crosses the line.
“I’m really just glad that Mini stood up for himself,” Honeycutt told Frontstretch. “Just kind of set a statement of, if we’re going to race like that then expect something back to him.
“I just hate that he had to set the example of this is stuff we need to clean up, and race more respectful. I was able to be there at the right time and catch that caution as the leader. I really felt like I had a chance to go run them down anyway.”
As one of the graduates of the CARS Tour now racing in one of NASCAR’s national series, Honeycutt is one that carries the banner for how the series is viewed and the type of racing that gets carried on to the next level, so his comments carry weight.
Even if Tyrrell had no intent to spin McKee, the comments by Honeycutt are still true in the sense that, if there had not been prior contact, Tyrrell likely would have shown more respect in his attempt to pass, intent or not. Hopefully the words of a driver like Honeycutt racing for a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship resonate with the CARS Tour field in the future.
A Championship Battle Turned On Its Head
Connor Hall and Landen Lewis entered South Boston separated by just one point. Both had their fair share of trouble on Saturday. But in the end, it was Lewis who left South Boston with the upper hand.
Lewis led early on but began to fade just before the first competition yellow, as the No. 29 seemed to have a tire going down. In a controversial moment, the team was allowed to change the tire, despite the tire being corded but not completely being down.
Nevertheless, the advantage changed hands. Lewis went to the back and Hall seemed to be in the catbird seat.
🔴 Violent @CARSTour crash at @SoBoSpeedway57 takes out multiple front runners!#CARSTour pic.twitter.com/ZqPyE6E56B
— FloRacing (@FloRacing) September 14, 2025
Following the Tyrrell-McKee indecent, Hall found himself in the top five inside the final 15 laps. But that all changed when a front straightaway pileup caught Hall in the crossfire, sending the No. 88 sliding into the turn 1 wall along with many others.
Through all the mess, Lewis made it through and wound up with fourth-place finish despite the mid-race setback. JR Motorsports had to scramble. But with plenty of hands-on effort from Hall, the No. 88 got back on track, salvaging an 18th-place result.
“I think at lap 90 it just completely shredded and was coming apart,” Lewis told Frontstretch. “We got very lucky being able to limp it without it coming apart and destroying the race car. We had that against us, we had a dead alternator so it wasn’t charging the battery. We were running on very low power so we couldn’t run any of our fans or anything pretty much the whole race.
“We had a lot of things up against us tonight and it just goes to show how hard my guys, we all fight together, … I tell them that quit is not in our dictionary because it’s not.”
“I got out of the race car and I was like man, this thing is toast,” Hall said post-race. “I got to looking at it and everything that looked really really bad, and obviously it is really really bad, but it looked like all four tires are going in the right direction. We actually came in, gave it a little bit of a nose-job and out we went.
“I want that championship, I wanted to do it for them and we’re not out of it, we’re still second but this definitely makes the window of opportunity a little smaller.”
With two races remaining, the gap now sits at 18 points. But as we’ve seen, the tide can turn quickly and anything can happen in the CARS Tour. Just 250 laps sit between one of the two and a CARS Tour championship.
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.