Brenden Queen Earns First CARS Tour Win of 2024 at Tri-County

Coming off his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut at North Wilkesboro Speedway, Brenden Queen returned to victory lane with the zMAX CARS Tour on Saturday at Tri-County Speedway.

Queen dominated the Late Model Stock portion of the SoundGear 225, leading every lap from the pole and holding off Chase Burrow in the closing laps for the victory.

A fourth-place finish in the Truck Series at North Wilkesboro marked a high point for Queen in what has otherwise been a disappointing season at times for the Virginia driver. After winning three of the last four CARS Tour races to close out 2023, Queen has two runner-up finishes and three finishes outside the top 10 with the series this year.

Those disappoints have highly motivated Queen and the Lee Pulliam Performance team to get back to the winner's circle.

"It's huge. This team needed it more than anybody knows," said Queen. "We haven't won since November, so there was a lot of doubting ourselves, doubting a lot of stuff. I knew Lee [Pulliam] hadn't forgotten how to work on these things. I knew we had a fast car.

"When you don't win for a while, you don't know when it's going to happen again. The series didn't get any easier. It's tough."

The win also could not come at a better time for "Butterbean." The next stop for the zMAX CARS Tour is his home track, Langley Speedway in one week's time.

"Well, I'm excited about Langley, being my home track. It doesn't get any easier. We're in the win column, and they can't take that away from us. It's a good points night. We're going to claw back into it one way or another."

Burrow settled for second place after a hard-fought battle for the lead, holding his head high after a career-best finish with the CARS Tour.

"It's a group effort, for sure," said Burrow. "We had a bad fast car. We lacked a little bit, but it is what it is. To come away with a second is awesome. The Sellers group is doing an awesome job."

Deac McCaskill rounded out the podium, a bounce-back effort of his own for the 2016 series champion. After finishing third in the season opener at Southern National Motorsports Park, McCaskill had not finished better than 16th at Orange County Speedway.

McCaskill had a front row seat for the Queen-Burrow battle.

"That was fun, man," said McCaskill. "Those last couple of restarts, Butterbean started getting real loose in. Him and Burrow put on a heck of a show. I thought they'd get together and I might be able to slip by both of them.

"We needed a long run to get going. The car would get better, but I just couldn't run them down. We were just so tight on those restarts."

JAKE BOLLMAN JOINS LIST OF CARS TOUR WINNERS AT TRI-COUNTY

Jake Bollman joined a growing list of drivers to earn their first zMAX CARS Tour event at Tri-County Speedway by taking the victory in the Pro Late Model feature.

Bollman dominated the second half of the race, finishing ahead of T.J. DeCaire and Spencer Davis for the victory.

The California driver has had pace at times during the season, but the results have not backed up that performance. On Saturday night at Tri-County, Bollman put all the pieces together in the Wilson Motorsports No. 24 to score the win.

“I feel like we came in for practice, and I knew we had a really good car,” said Bollman. “We just focused on running race pace. That was the main thing, having a long race run. We did it tonight. We’ve had a lot of bad luck in the past. It’s good to change it around this weekend.”

On the Late Model Stock side, Tri-County Speedway has been the site of several first time CARS Tour winners, such as Bobby McCarty, Mini Tyrrell, Conner Jones and most recently Landon Huffman. Bollman joined that contingent on the Pro Late Model front with his win.

“It means everything to me. Winning’s everything, right? To make a career in this sport, you have to be good. I have a really good team, hats off to them.”

Another young driver flexing his muscle Saturday was T.J. DeCaire with a second-place finish in the Highlands Motorsports No. 96. DeCaire scored his first top-five finish of the 2024 season, as well as a career-best with the CARS Tour.

“The team’s all put it together,” said DeCaire. “We’re progressing as a team, and that’s what it’s all about. We’re getting better every week. We were good in practice, qualifying was decent and this was our best finish, second place. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season and more good finishes.”

Meanwhile, a fierce championship battle between Kaden Honeycutt and Spencer Davis continues. Davis finished third to unofficially take the points lead from Honeycutt, as they entered the evening tied for the points lead.

“Everything matters, right?” said Davis after his podium finish. “I grew up racing without stages and all that fun stuff. When I was growing up racing, each point mattered all year. Even if you wad the thing up, you get back out there. You struggle around, get every point you can get.

“It’s going to be tight. Kaden’s really good. It’s going to be between me and him. I wouldn’t have anyone else I’d rather race against. Kaden’s really strong, a real good competitor and real disciplined. I think it’s going to be a fun year.

“Everybody better be ready for Wilkesboro at the end of the year, because it won’t get easier. I think we took the points lead there, sole possession, finally. With how close it is, it’s going to change week-to-week all year.”

Nick Loden led the first 25 laps after starting on the pole for the Pro Late Model event. However, his race ended after contact with Tristan McKee. The contact sent Loden hard into the outside wall, and ultimately led to further issues for McKee as well.

Loden expressed his frustration with the incident, while McKee considered it a racing incident.

“We’re racing with immature 13-year-olds,” said Loden. “They run out of talent and junk us 30 laps into a race.

“The car was great. We definitely had a car to win. I was just trying not to burn my stuff up. We just got our day ended prematurely.”

“I don’t know, it’s hard to say. We were pretty equal,” said McKee. “I held him up on entry a little bit, and we just got together. It was a racing deal.”

-Photo credit: CARS Tour on X

CARS TOUR UNOFFICIAL RESULTS - TRI-COUNTY SPEEDWAY

LATE MODEL STOCK CARS

PRO LATE MODELS