Dale Jr. Debrief: CARS Tour Co-Owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. Recaps An Instant Classic At Anderson
CARS Tour co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. breaks down a crazy night at Anderson Motor Speedway.
Video Transcript
Hey, everybody.
It's Dylan Hart Jr. Gonna recap the CARS Tour action in the zMAX CARS Tour series, from Anderson Motor Speedway this past weekend.
Incredible crowd that showed up.
Wanna thank all the fans that supported this race.
There was a lot of energy, and that was a direct reflection, or impact on what we saw on the racetrack.
We had an incredible night of racing.
Getting the night started off, were the Pro Late Models, and Brody Monahan was set on the pole, lead every lap, and win the race.
Pretty incredible statement victory of growth and improvement for Brody because he, he is the same guy who at Hickory, the last race, missed a lot of shifts and wrecked a lot of race cars.
So, pretty tough, criticism following all that, but he comes up to Anderson, sets on the pole, and leads every lap, wins the race.
So solid weekend for Brody.
Treyton Lapcevich, who's also battling in the points, had a DNF, finishing last.
And Connor Jones, ended up driving through the field to run second.
Solid run by Connor.
Maybe the best car, TJ Dekeire, also in the top three there, and Mason Walters in the six ended up in fourth.
All the usual suspects running up front in the Pro Late Models.
The Late Model Stock race was, equally as exciting if, if not a little bit more due to some things happening throughout the race.
Kicking it off, Carson Loftin, Lofton would, set on the pole.
Carson has, you know, kind of struggled to find balance and consistency.
He's changed, cars over the course of the year.
And, he's driving for Mark, Mike Darn, who always has really fast race cars, and they found a great package this weekend that complemented the speed, that Carson can bring to the table.
So good job by him.
We had a couple other teams that joined us that typically don't race with us this weekend.
Taylor, Taylor Satterfield qualified in second.
Riley Gentry runs with us every now and then, qualified in sixth.
And then Keelan Harvick, running his first Late Model Stock race in the CARS Tour, qualified in the top 10, would also finish there with a solid night.
Racing the CARS Tour in the Late Model Stock is extremely competitive.
Looking at this field of cars, there's just not a bad car in the lineup, and the guy that runs 20th one week can win the race the next.
It's just that competitive, and, Keelan did a really solid job, I think, just getting in there, running the laps, and finishing all the laps.
And so, a little bit of a dust-up in the middle of the race, created a little bit of, of social media content, between Tyler Reiff, who qualified in fifth, in the number four car, and Landon Huffman in the 57.
Landon has struggled qualifying, but qualified 10th in this race and was working his way forward.
Him and Tyler were racing down the back straightaway, and this, a small misjudgment by Tyler getting in the corner.
He climbs up on the left rear tire of Landon and turns Landon around, destroying Landon's car, and a few other cars were involved as well.
Tyler's car was damaged.
Landon gets out of his car, walks down pit road.
I do not have a problem really with drivers going to talk to other drivers, as long as it's not physical.
I think that, you know, that's gonna happen at the racetrack.
We're not gonna, you know, make sure that all the drivers have to kind of, you know, stay in their pits and they're not allowed to go have conversations or talk about what's going on the racetrack with other drivers, just as long as it doesn't go, go physical.
And Landon ends up kicking the door on the four car before he walked away.
So that crosses a bit of a line, and we'll kind of have to see what that means for Landon going forward.
But, you know, just a lot of passion and frustration, I think, for Landon.
And, and, and Tyler comes down to his pit later on, I, I, I'm assuming to apologize, but that didn't go all that well either.
So those two guys gotta have, you know, find a way to work all that out.
Ronnie Bassett Jr.
Qualified in third, had a really strong car.
At one point in the race, there is a restart, and Carson Lofton is dragging his feet.
I would say, confidently that we, we ended up making the right call here, but it was a very unique call.
Typically, if you are over-slowing the car coming into the s- restart zone, that's kind of playing games that we don't want to have.
You need to roll up into the restart zone at a general pace, a traditional pace.
And if you're over-slowing the car and allowing the outside line car to have to slow down as well to sort of keep pace with you so he doesn't advance in front of you, we're gonna, we're gonna have a problem with that.
Carson did over-slow his car, but also Ronnie Bassett, who's on the outside, has a job and a responsibility to not be the lead car when they fire.
And if that were to happen, he cannot then take that advantage down into turn one, and that's kind of what happened.
So in my eyes, I'm not, I'm not Danny up there making the call in the booth, but Carson Lofton over-slowed.
I would pop him for a penalty.
Ronnie Bassett did not over-slow, but also launched, and when we got down into turn one, he's nearly clear of, of the control car.
I wished he would give some back.
Yeah, I think if he gives a lot of that back and enters turn one even, then I think M- Ronnie might have been okay.
I can't say for sure what might have happened there, but both of those cars, we throw the yellow, and both of those cars are sent back one row.
You know, last year, that was a, that was a to the tail of the field penalty, and we talked to our teams, and they said, "Man, that ruins our night."
And we as a series didn't want to go with a warning because everybody knows if you get a warning, you're gonna take advantage of that and, try to get away with a, with a foul restart 'cause you know you're only going to get a warning.
So we went with a new rule this year where if you get popped for a penalty on a restart, you go back one row, and I don't think that's asking too much from the series or the teams or the drivers.
And so both cars uniquely were sent back to the second row.
And so that really turned, turned the race into quite an interesting, situation.
And, Connor Jones is up there battling late in the race.
Chase Bergerson is up there battling as well.
Treyton Lapsevich would drive up into the top five as well as Caden Quapel.
And, and it came down to it really with, I don't know, just a handful of laps to go, maybe three or four laps to go.
Chase Bergerson is winning this race clear by 20 car lengths.
He has this race won driving for Lee Pulliam.
I'm not sure exactly what happened to the car, whether he had a right front tire flat or a suspension failure, but this car ended up laying on the racetrack bottoming out into the corners, and he had to over slow just to be able to keep the car on the bottom of the racetrack and make the turn.
And so that allowed Connor Jones to close the gap with Carson Lofton right on his heels.
When they come to take the white flag, they're basically splitting the car of Chase Bergerson.
Connor Jones would go to the top of the racetrack, which I thought was actually the right move, and he just couldn't get to the outside of Chase and really be able to kind of finish the pass.
And, and as they make contact and kind of get up the racetrack, Carson Lofton, who again was sent back a few positions because of that restart penalty, goes to the inside, wraps the bottom in three and four, and wins the race crossing the finish line first.
Pretty epic battle.
And I would say that, you know, in terms of race control, I was pretty happy, with all the calls that we made, and we ended up having a fantastic night.
There was, there was just, you know, a lot of energy and excitement afterwards on social media around the finish of that late model stock race.
A couple of awards.
We, we give out awards all the time.
Poll awards, the iRacing halfway point, but a couple that, that, that I wanted to make note of, the Hot-- the Heat Wave Visual Hot Lap award that was given to Brody, who won the pro race, and Chad McCombie, in the late model stocks.
And then Mike Darn and Scott Anderson were the strange oval crew chiefs of the race winners, both doing an incredible job on their race cars, to give their drivers a chance at a great night.
Don't forget the next race.
This is a big one that, I encourage a lot of people to take advantage of.
It's at Florence Motor Speedway on the fourth of next month.
It's a Friday night race.
The great thing about Florence is it's ten miles from Darlington, and the Cup Series or the NASCAR Series is racing at Darlington on that weekend.
So, if you're at, if you're at Darlington and you're looking for something to do on Friday night, if you're at the racetrack and you're looking for somewhere to go to have a little fun to, to, add to your weekend of watching the NASCAR series, come over to Florence and enjoy some good short track racing.
Who knows who you might see behind the wheel of some of these cars in the Pro and the late model stock race from the, from time to time.
That's one of the races, because of its close proximity to Darlington, that we end up getting a cup driver or two to compete with us that night.
So if I was a fan of the Cars Tour or happened to be in the area of Darlington for the race weekend on the big track, I'd be getting over to Florence.
It's a throwback venue and, and, and would give you a very authentic experience of racing at the short tracks, around the southeast.
So I'm looking forward to it.
I might slip in there and, and catch the action myself.
So, hopefully we'll see you there.
Y'all take care.
