Brenden “Butterbean” Queen and Mini Tyrrell may be new to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, Kaulig Racing and RAM, but they are not new to each other.
The two Truck rookies have known each other for years and have known of each other for even longer. Both came up through Virginia’s grassroots racing scene, with Queen hailing from Chesapeake and Tyrrell from Manassas, nearly 200 miles apart.
Despite the distance and Queen being seven years older than Tyrrell (Queen is 28 years old and Tyrrell is 21), they quickly learned of each other’s talent in a racecar.
“Honestly, when he was young [is when I first heard of Tyrrell],” Queen tells Frontstretch. “We’re all from Virginia, and I remember him arena racing and racing late models way before I was because of the age requirement and then he was racing at a track that allowed it because it wasn’t NASCAR.”
At just 10 years old, Tyrrell became the youngest winner ever in a Late Model Stock Car when he won for the first time at Shenandoah Speedway. He followed that up with two track championships.
Queen got his start at Langley Speedway in Hampton, Va., working his way up the ranks before climbing in a late model himself at age 15 in 2013. It took a while, but Queen finally won his first late model races in 2016 at Southern National Motorsports Park before becoming a larger-than-life persona at home track Langley. He won three straight track championships (2020-22) and three Hampton Heats (2020, 2023 and 2024) while building a large local fanbase known as Bean Nation.
“My father had gone to Langley Speedway one weekend and went to watch, and I can’t remember what I was doing,” Tyrrell tells Frontstretch. “I didn’t go. It was one of the local shows, and Butterbean was winning a bunch of races there. He was a fan favorite, and that was his home track.
“Dad calls me, because we’d seen Butterbean on social media and whatnot. And he’s like, ‘Hey, Butterbean knows who you are. He’s seen you out there running.’ I think I was racing in Shenandoah Speedway at the time in late models, and I was really young and had got a little bit of social media press from being young and doing the late models at 10 years old. So yeah, [my dad] called me, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of cool. I got a big guy out there in the late model world who knows who I am.'”
Tyrrell began racing full time in the zMAX CARS Tour LMSC division in 2019 at age 14, scoring his first win in the series two years later. He became a CARS regular while Queen was dominating the local ranks and working as a longshoreman at The Port of Virginia to pay the bills. But the two parallel paths got a little closer when Queen drove in a pair of CARS races in 2022, winning the one at Langley. He and Tyrrell also competed against each other in that year’s Virginia Triple Crown.
Queen then joined Tyrrell as a full-time CARS competitor for the next two seasons, joining up with Lee Pulliam Performance as Tyrrell raced for his family’s team.
Queen won four races in 2023 and finished runner-up in the standings while Tyrrell endured a winless drought. However, while he also didn’t win in 2024, Tyrrell finished third in the standings. The champion that year? Queen.
“We raced super hard, door to door all season long and had our battles,” Tyrrell says. “But me and Butterbean have always remained friends. Just two guys that want to do the best they can and are very talented. He’s such a talented racecar driver, and he’s a great personality too. There’s a reason he’s got the fans and the following that he does because he’s a great personality.”
The two had a few run-ins during their time racing together in the series, like when tempers flared after they got together in the 2024 race at Wake County Speedway.
“Friends gotta punch each other a few times before they become besties, right?” Tyrrell says.
However, the two paths diverged in 2025, with Queen going full time in the ARCA Menards Series, winning eight times en route to the championship. Tyrrell, meanwhile, had a breakout season in CARS. He broke his winless streak and won three times over the course of the year, finishing fifth in points.
Queen’s ARCA success caught the attention of Kaulig CEO Chris Rice, who put Queen in a few NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series races last year before giving him the No. 12 truck full time this year.
“Honestly, when I won Dover [Motor Speedway], Chris Rice reached out,” Queen recalls. “And I had actually met with Chris Rice before, but honestly, after I won Dover, I was at the Waffle House on the way back to the Hampton Heat, and Chris reached out wanting to chat.
“And so part of the deal when I signed for this RAM deal was they threw me in the [No.] 11 car last year, which was awesome, dream come true and had speed. I mean, they threw me to the wolves. … I think it just helped prepare me for this year, working with my crew chief Eddie [Pardue]. So there was a lot of good things, but that’s kind of how the relationship started with Chris and RAM and everybody at Kaulig and Matt [Kaulig].”
Coincidentally, Rice began his racing career at South Boston Speedway in Virginia, while Pardue used to race at Langley long before Queen did.
Queen’s rise to the NASCAR national ranks was complete, but it seemed Tyrrell was going to continue as a CARS regular for the time being. That all changed when Tyrrell was selected as one of the participants on RAM: Race for the Seat, a reality TV show from the offseason, where 15 grassroots drivers competed to earn a full-time ride in Kaulig’s No. 14 truck this season.
“So I was at South Boston racing in September,” Tyrrell says. “It was one of the last CARS Tour races, and Chris had given me a phone call and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this show for RAM and we want you to be a part of it. Is it something that you’re interested in doing? You have an opportunity to drive a Craftsman truck next year for a full season.’ And I said, ‘Mr. Rice, that’s all you had to say. Whatever I got to do, I’m in.'”
Tyrrell won that competition, coincidentally clinching it at South Boston, and now joins Queen as part of the Kaulig Truck lineup.
“I’m so grateful and so thankful to them that I came out on top and won the seat,” Tyrrell says. “And for what they’ve done for me so far, little Mini would have never thought that he would be at this level and be getting such a phenomenal treatment that I’m getting.
“… I didn’t see myself at this age being here yet. I thought it was going to take a little longer.”
In another crossing of paths, Queen was the driver Rice tasked with setting up the cars used in later episodes of the show.
“Obviously, I’ve known Mini a long time, and then we CARS Tour raced for a couple of years there,” Queen says. “So I think the coolest part about it is just two short track guys making it. When you’re a short track guy, you pull for all the short track guys to get a shot, because you know how important it is and how hard it is.
“So obviously, there was a lot of talent on the show, and there’s a lot of people that gave him a run for his money, but it is cool to have somebody on the team that you know already and you’ve been around. So I think that makes it easier for me, at least.”
These two parallel journeys of two grassroots racers from Virginia have finally synced up in 2026 in the Truck Series. They’ve received their shots in NASCAR, so now it is on them to produce results. Given Queen’s experience in ARCA and O’Reilly, Tyrrell is already seeking advice from his former rival and new teammate.
“It’s just really cool to have him as a teammate and us growing up racing against each other and being friends and now actually working for the same race team,” Tyrrell explains. “So it’s really cool because now me and him talk all the time, and he helps me out and gives me advice because he’s got more experience than I do in this. So I try to lean on him a little bit when I can.”
Two races into the Truck season, Queen sits sixth in points with one top 10. Tyrrell is 15th in the standings after a pair of 19th-place results. Next, they take on a challenge far different than anything they ever saw on the Virginia short tracks: a race on the Streets of St. Petersburg.
Watch the full Queen interview below or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Stay tuned for the full Tyrrell interview in the coming weeks.
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020.
Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.