Conner Jones, Kaden Honeycutt Take CARS Tour Wins at Tri-County

A chaotic evening of racing at Tri-County Speedway saw Conner Jones and Kaden Honeycutt celebrating zMAX CARS Tour wins at the end of Saturday night.

The zMAX Late Model Stock Cars opened the evening, with Corey Heim dominating the first 110 laps of the 125-lap feature in the Lee Pulliam Motorsports No. 55.

However, the caution flag flew on lap 109 for a multi-car incident involving Deac McCaskill, Brent Crews and Max Reaves. Shortly thereafter, Mini Tyrrell assumed the top spot and started opening a gap on the field.

Ryan Wilson and Charlie Watson came together with three laps remaining to bring out a caution, which set forth a series of events that completely changed the complexion of the race. First, Mini Tyrrell ran out of fuel from the lead, as did sixth-place Ryan Millington.

"I don't know what Late Model Stock racing where there's 125 laps and you have to cut the car off and coast to save fuel," said Tyrrell. "I was doing it since lap 20 when we had the first caution. Just pretty ridiculous. We get cars that are balled up and we're doing 10, 12 caution laps every caution. It's really painful.

"That cost us the race win. It sucks. We showed how much speed this car had and how good we really were. We should be standing in victory lane right about now, but it is what it is."

With Tyrrell running out of fuel, Jones inherited the lead. On the following restart, a multi-car incident collected Heim, Brandon Pierce, Ronnie Bassett, Jr., William Sawalich and Brody Monahan among others. The next restart was also quickly aborted when Treyten Lapcevich ran out of fuel.

At last, the field completed the final three laps on the next restart, with Jones holding on for the win ahead of Jared Fryar and Brenden Queen.

"I was kind of numb all day," said Jones. "I knew we had a really good car. It dropped out of the trailer damn near perfect, you couldn't ask for a better car. I knew I had to do something with it. That's all I can say. Mike [Darne] worked too hard in the shop all week to not do anything with it.

"I knew I had to win. That's what we did. We came here, unloaded great and won. That's all I can say. Hats off to all those guys who put this stuff together.

"We've had a really unlucky year. We should have won Ace. That just fell out for us. We finally got it done tonight, and I think we'll be really good for Wilkesboro."

With an 11 p.m. curfew looming, however, the Pro Late Model feature was a race against the clock. Tristan McKee led the first 73 laps of that event, but fell back to fourth on a restart which turned the lead over to Kaden Honeycutt.

A lap 80 caution necessitated the race being shortened, with one final attempt at a restart as the field raced to the curfew. McKee appeared to jump back out front on the restart and received the checkered flags after 85 of the scheduled 100 laps.

Upon further review by CARS Tour officials, it was deemed McKee jumped the restart, with Honeycutt being declared the winner. While the circumstances were not ideal, it's a pivotal victory in Honeycutt's championship hopes.

Honeycutt entered the night trailing Spencer Davis by 11 points in the title fight, with just one race remaining next week at North Wilkesboro Speedway. The gap will be even closer when CARS Tour teams unload at North Wilkesboro.

"It's honestly thanks to these guys," said Honeycutt. "BLR Racing, Dustin, Bryson, Ernie Lopez, the opportunity to even run their car, I can't think of a family that's done so much for me to finish out a season. We've been here for quite a while. We worked so hard this week to cut into this championship. We want to win it.

"That's not how we want to win it, but it's pretty simple to me."

The night was also a big one for the CARS Tour's Late Model Stock championship battle. Connor Hall entered the evening with a one-point advantage over Brenden Queen, but was involved in a multi-car incident with 44 laps to go.

Hall soldiered on and limited the damage with a 13th-place finish, surpassing many competitors involved in the late slew of cautions. Queen's podium finish gives him the points lead, but Hall remains in striking distance for the finale.

The CARS Tour finale at North Wilkesboro Speedway on October 19 is part of a busy weekend at the venue. The SMART Modified Tour will contest its final event of 2024 alongside both CARS Tour divisions on Saturday. The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour then competes on Sunday, October 20.

-Photo credit: CARS Tour

zMAX CARS Tour Unofficial Results

Late Model Stock Cars