Brent Crews Scores First CARS Tour Win at Orange County

Add another first-time winner to the zMAX CARS Tour Late Model Stock record books.

Two weeks ago, Connor Zilisch won at Hickory Motor Speedway to join the list of winners in the series' 10th season. On Saturday night at Orange County Speedway, it was Brent Crews' turn to become part of the club.

Crews took the lead on lap 87 of the 125-lap Late Model Stock feature before taking the win ahead of Kaden Honeycutt and Carson Kvapil.

It was anything but an easy victory for Crews and his Kevin Harvick, Inc. team. In fact, it was a long Friday night for the team after issues during Friday's practice session ahead of the Orange Blossom 250.

“This KHI crew, we blew up yesterday," explained Crews. "They went back to the shop, and every single one of them only had two hours of sleep last night. For them to be able to work as hard as they do, 100+ hours a week to build a bad-ass race car is unbelievable."

The 16-year-old had to race against the likes of three-time series champion Bobby McCarty, Honeycutt and Mini Tyrrell to secure the win, but proved too much for the competition to handle in the closing laps.

“It was fun racing all those guys on the restart," said Crews. "Bobby, Kaden, Mini, all of them raced me super hard all night. It’s finally good to win."

Honeycutt won the Pro Late Model 100-lapper earlier in the evening, the second in his career with the CARS Tour Pro Late Models and fifth overall under the CARS Tour banner.

“It’s a small team," said Honeycutt after the Pro Late Model win. "We do this with two full-time people and a really old race car. That’s what makes this so much sweeter. These guys work so hard getting me every opportunity to be successful. Especially David Page for the opportunity and the way he’s helping me this year, it’s really second to none.

“He gave me the top on that restart. I got into it with Mini one time there on the backstretch and it just knocked the toe in so far. It just got really tight after that."

Honeycutt was in position for a sweep of the evening, but settled for a second-place run in the Late Model Stock race to close out the evening.

“I hate that we didn’t win that," said Honeycutt. "I felt like he gave me the chance to run it. I thought I was going to be able to get him there for a second and then I went off into one and it was really tight.”

Nick Loden finished second to Honeycutt in the Pro Late Model event. Loden lost some ground just past the halfway mark after miscommunication coming to the choose cone under caution, but rallied back for a second place finish.

“On the long run, we definitely had the best car on the track. It was awesome. We were talking and I didn’t know we were choosing that one lap. I wound up in fourth, that shouldn’t have happened. If that didn’t happen, we probably would have won the race.

Meanwhile, Spencer Davis finished third to make up some points on Kyle Campbell, who had won the first two Pro Late Model events of the season. Campbell finished nine laps down after coming to pit road with an issue under green flag conditions.

“It’s going to be a good points day,” said Davis. “Unfortunately, the 03 had an issue. I don’t know what happened with the 00 when he tried to pull a crossover move. Finish, big picture. Everyone loves to win but at the end of the day, we aren’t beat up too bad. We can go test North Wilkesboro and we’re a lot closer to the points lead than we were going in.

“We’re just going out here with one car, one motor, one transmission, trying to make this happen. Going for the points lead, that’s what we’re looking for.”

-Photo credit: Will Bellamy, Racing America