NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C.- The zMAX CARS Tour has a new champion leaving North Wilkesboro Speedway – one who not only earned that title, but deserves it. The Kevin Harvick Incorporated No. 29 team capped off a historic, dominant season at North Wilkesboro this past Saturday (Oct. 18) night.
🔥 What a way to close out the @CARSTour season! @NWBSpeedway@landenlewis99 is the 2025 LMSC Champion! pic.twitter.com/FATxYIwY6Z
— FloRacing (@FloRacing) October 19, 2025
Josh Berry. Bobby McCarty. Carson Kvapil. Landen Lewis. That’s the short list of names who have won a CARS Tour championship while winning four or more races in a season – three of the greatest Late Model Stock car drivers of this generation, and the kid who just added his name to the list.
It’s been quite the ride for Lewis, who started at KHI as a shop guy running part-time in the team’s second car. The relationship with Kevin Harvick was built through go-kart racing and then Legends cars, sharing the track and coaching Harvick’s son, Keelan.
Over time, that evolved to this full-time opportunity. And at the end of the year, the pairing has conquered the tallest mountain in Late Model Stock racing, winning a championship in what many consider the toughest short track racing series in the nation.
It’s been a journey filled with peaks and valleys, but the end result is well worth the fight.
“It’s been up and down for sure,” Lewis told Frontstretch after securing his title with a seventh-place run at North Wilkesboro. “It’s been an emotional roller coaster, really. At one point you’re on top of the world, the next practice you’re dead last. That’s just how hard this CARS Tour really is. One week you show up and you’re really good, the next week you try to show up with the same package and you’re junk.
“We definitely got off track there right there around Caraway (Speedway), Hickory (Motor Speedway), incidents. I feel like the driving style just changed in the wrong direction as far as just trying to make things happen that weren’t meant to happen, or weren’t ready to happen. I changed my way of looking at a race weekend and I feel like that helped us get to this point, and us bringing prepared, fast racecars also helps as well.”
Team owner Harvick has watched Lewis grow both on the racetrack and behind closed doors over the past few years. He reiterated that this is Lewis’ team, and without him, the drive to the championship doesn’t happen.
“That’s the thing that a lot of people don’t realize about Landen,” Harvick said. “He spends every day working on the car. When he goes home at night is when he studies and learns how to drive, during the day he’s a mechanic and body hanger and everything else in between. That’s why all these people help him, is because he’s just a good human.
“That’s what we preach to both of the kids, Landen and Keelan, is [that] it’s more important to be a good human than it is to go fast. Usually if you’re a good person, you have more people that want to help you. That’s why Rodney [Childers] is here and that’s why all these people show up to want to work on the car, and help to be on the car.
“And he does all of that, I mean he put the sponsors on the car, he builds the car. That’s his program. I mean we give him resources and things to keep organized and structured and all the things outside of that luckily from the management side. But, that program doesn’t happen without his effort.”
Lewis was honored to receive such high praise from Harvick, but once again deflected back towards the team, stating in humble fashion that it’s a team effort, not just one man.
“That means the world to me,” Lewis said of Harvick’s comments. “Pretty special. You have future NASCAR Hall of Famer – in my opinion, one of the greatest to do it – give me that honor that without me, this program wouldn’t be where it’s at. [But] really, it’s not just me, it’s the guys. The road guys, the shop guys, like without them this wouldn’t be possible, right?
“So you can say many different ways but at the end of the day, I’m not going to take all the credit for it, because it’s not just me in this deal, it’s all our guys that come here and bust their butt every single weekend when they could be home with their families, spending their weekend right, as an off weekend. They choose to be here with me and that’s pretty special to be able to say that, just thankful that they choose their weekends to spend with me.”
So, what’s next?
Both Harvick and Lewis were reluctant to say, each deterring from the question in their own way. Harvick claimed that the program will take a bit of a shift with less involvement from Lewis, while Lewis says his entire focus was on the now, not the future. Still, one of these comments leads to some speculation about the other.
“It was super important for Landen to be able to do that,” Harvick said. “As we go forward, it’s going to be a little more sporadic for us as we move into next year with where we race, when we race and all those types of things. There’s a number of moving pieces that go with it. I mean we wouldn’t have run for a championship and run all the races if it wasn’t for Landen. So, that program is for Landen to be able to go out and showcase who he is and what he does.”
“To be honest with you, we’re working on a couple things right now,” Lewis said. “As a person, I wanted to focus on this year first before I kind of started focusing on next year. Just because blood, sweat, tears, people want to cut each other’s head off at shops sometimes right. Everyone is working off of emotion so I wanted to pour everything I possibly had into this year to make this year count for me and for my guys. We did that, now we have accomplished that and now I can start working on next year.”
Reading between the lines, it appears Lewis will be moving on to new opportunities in some capacity, while KHI scales back. If that proves to be the case, kudos to Lewis and the team for making the most of this year and putting on a show for the short track world to enjoy.
Time and time again, the saying that seems to get passed around with the CARS Tour is “if you can win here, you can win anywhere.”
Drivers like Berry, Kvapil, Layne Riggs and Corey Heim would tell you that’s true. If you’re Lewis, sure, you won a title driving for Harvick. You also beat a car owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr. and a field of the best short track racers in the country.
This CARS Tour season brought plenty of memorable moments, and the grind for Lewis and the No. 29 team to climb the mountain is right there near the top. From Ace, to North Wilkesboro, Anderson and Florence, Lewis proved he can win here.
Now it’s time for him to prove he truly can win anywhere.
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.