Carson Kvapil celebrates in victory lane after winning Wednesday night’s CARS Late Model Stock Car Tour race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Photo: CARS Tour/Twitter
Carson Kvapil stayed at the head of the field all evening and scored the CARS Late Model Stock Car Tour victory on Wednesday night at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
It marked the third series win of the season for Kvapil. Meanwhile, his JR Motorsports team owner, NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt, Jr., came home with a third place finish in his first Late Model start in 25 years.
The significance of the win was not lost on Kvapil as he celebrated with Earnhardt, Jr. and his entire crew.
“Just having cars on track (at North Wilkesboro) is huge,” Kvapil said. “It’s been over 10 years and it was even longer for Dale. Everyone wanted this place back and we got it back for them. This is one of the biggest races of the year, so winning in front of all these fans is huge.”
Kvapil commended JR Motorsports for putting together a perfect car that allowed him to run at his own pace all evening. He briefly surrendered the lead to Mini Tyrrell and Jacob Heafner to save his tires before quickly resuming control.
Despite this, a late caution for Connor Mosack’s spin in turn 2 meant that Kvapil would need one more restart to fend off the second place car of Mason Diaz and Earnhardt, Jr., the latter of whom was running some of the fastest laps on track before the yellow was displayed.
Even though Earnhardt, Jr. was faster on the longer run, Kvapil’s most pressing concern was fending off Diaz for the two-lap shootout. He knew Diaz would be aggressive in trying to pass him for the win but appreciated that Diaz did not try to deliberately move him out of the way.
“I was a little bit worried about Mason,” Kvapil said. “I knew he was going to get to my back bumper in the center of the corner and I felt I was a little weak there in turns 1 and 2. He got my left rear a little bit, but he raced me clean, and I’ll remember that for next time.”
The fight for the win took place out the windshield of Earnhardt, Jr.
“I’ve worked my guts out for two days and I am gassed,” Earnhardt, Jr. said. “A while back, I made a lot of promises on what I could contribute to the event. We were busy, and I don’t know if I can do something this big again. I don’t like being the middle of attention because it’s not very comfortable for me.”
Earnhardt Jr. does not intend Wednesday night’s race to be his last foray into Late Model Stock racing. He is considering running one of the crown jewel events at the end of the year but has not ruled out potentially showing up unannounced to a regularly weekly race in the future.
“(The Thanksgiving Classic) is something I could run,” Earnhardt, Jr. said. “I was looking at the schedule weeks ago, and I might run (the South Carolina 400) or maybe both of those. I’m definitely going to race a couple of times next year at somewhere like Florence (Motor Speedway) on a Friday night and not tell anybody. We’ll just show up, but something like this will be difficult to do again.”
While Kvapil and Earnhardt Jr. celebrated in victory lane, Diaz was left to ponder over narrowly missing out on his first CARS LMSC Tour victory.
Diaz found himself in a perfect position to overtake Kvapil by lining up to his outside on the green-white-checkered attempt. While he admitted to slightly overdriving the corner, he said having to fight his way up through the field put enough strain on the tires to hinder his car at the end of the night.
“It was a challenging day for sure,” Diaz said. “Starting 20th kind of hurt us. Saving tires was not an issue for us but going through the field while saving tires was a struggle. If we saved a little bit more left rear tire, that would have given us the drive we needed at the end of the race.”
Although he was disappointed by coming up one spot short of a win, Diaz said the performance of his car in Wednesday’s Window World 125 highlights the progress he and Mike Darne Racing continue to make with each week.
Jonathan Shafer came home in fourth, with Bobby McCarty in fifth.
Kaden Honeycutt, Zack Miracle, William Sawalich, Stefan Parsons, and Brandon Pierce rounded out the top 10.
The CARS LMSC Tour next heads for Tri-County Motor Speedway in Granite Falls, North Carolina on September 10. For more information, visit CARSRacingTour.com.
CARS Late Model Stock Car Tour
North Wilkesboro Speedway – North Wilkesboro, NC
Window World 125 – August 31, 2022
1. 8 Carson Kvapil
2. 24 Mason Diaz
3. 3 Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
4. 91 Jonathan Shafer
5. 22 Bobby McCarty
6. 12 Kaden Honeycutt
7. 32 Zack Miracle
8. 43 William Sawalich
9. 21 Stefan Parsons
10. 2 Brandon Pierce
11. 95 Jacob Heafner
12. 2r Braden Rogers
13. 8b Chase Burrow
14. 14 Jared Fryar
15. 16 Chad McCumbee
16. 77 Connor Hall
17. 1 Andrew Grady
18. 28 Connor Mosack
19. 4w Dylon Wilson
20. 44 Conner Jones
21. 10 Janson Marchbanks
22. 81 Mini Tyrrell
23. 34 Pat Rachels
24. 03 Brenden Queen
25. 78 Corey Heim
26. 71 Katie Hettinger
27. 29 Bryan Reedy
28. 4 Hayden Swank
29. 87 Mike Looney
30. 5 Carter Langley
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