Kaden Honeycutt

[ron.brown11]

Kaden finished 4th in the CARS Tour 125 race at Ace Speedway in North Carolina. He started 11th or 12th, and had a good clean run, after getting taken out at Hickory in the last race. Kvapil won running the Jr Motorsports #8 car. He increased his points lead over Queen. Mason Diaz was second. Ryan Millington was third. Brendan Butterbean Queen lead the first half, but the car went away after a restart and finished 5th. I really think that Bobby McCarty had something for Kvapil, but on another restart he grenaded his tranny trying to get in 4th. That took a bit to cleanup, and they had to go red for a bit. Thankfully there were no major crashes, mainly just nose to rear damage for a few couple cars. That's a great thing for the teams, as the next race is next Sat at Tri-County in NC, and it pays $30k.

[NickHolt]

Kaden's dad is Kirby Honeycutt, right?

[ron.brown11]

Yes, it's Kirby. He's the manager of HD Trailer Manufacturing in Aledo, TX. I have a cousin that lives 6-8 miles from the business there.

[ron.brown11]

But there is 2 businesses that use the same address, and he's listed as the manager of both. The other place is Trailertech LLC.

[NickHolt]

Kirby is a pretty savvy racer himself, as I recall.

[ron.brown11]

I can't say anything to that. I don't think I've seen him race, but I could be wrong. But the fact that he supports Kaden so much, that would lead me to believe that he was a racer. Because it sure doesn't sound like Kirby is 1 of those rich daddies that can afford to buy Kaden a ride. I wish he could, because I believe Kaden has the talent to race at higher levels. He always seems to run upfront, doesn't tear up his equipment, and wins some. Too bad I didn't win that $1.5 billion last week!! 

[ron.brown11]

Kaden is running the CARS Tour race at Tri-County Speedway on Sat. That would be a great payday for them. Jared Fryar will be there too. Layne Riggs will also be there in the Harvick #62 again. As there are 35 entries for that race, somebody probably isn't going to get to race. The track is a 4/10 mile in length, so I'd be surprised if everyone starts. If they do start them all, traffic will be a constant all race long. Hopefully it will be a good clean race.

[ron.brown11]

I just read an article on Frontstretch.com. It was titled "Three Drivers That Deserve A Better Look". Number 1 on that list was Kaden Honeycutt. I wasn't surprised, and was also very happy for him. Second was Layne Riggs, and third was Matt Mills. I watched a lot of Layne's national championship races last season, he's really good too. I haven't seen Matt Mills run much, but what I've seen was very positive. I hope that they all will get decent rides, to see if they do have what it takes to get to the top. From what I've seen of Kaden & Layne, I think they do. They just need someone to take a chance on them.

[ron.brown11]

Kaden started 15th in the 200 lapper at Tri-County. Sixty laps in he running 6th. So far, Carson Kvapil has led nearly all of the laps.

[ron.brown11]

With 113 laps down, Kaden is running 8th. Mason Diaz took over the lead 5 laps ago. On the second controlled caution, Brendan Queen got put to the tail of the field, for taking about 30 seconds too long on pit road. No mater, he's running 6th at this controlled caution. For these past 2 controlled cautions, Kvapil has needed a push to get restarted. Not sure what's going on, but the car seems to be running ok once it re-fires. We'll see if it makes all of the laps.

[ron.brown11]

Well that re-start didn't go good for Kaden. He re-started 8th, and got shuffled back to 19th. Hopefully he can climb back up there.

[ron.brown11]

It just got worse. With cars going 3 wide, Kaden Brown spins. Honeycutt got squeezed into the wall and spun. Funny thing is, he passed those 3 cars that spun, so he's now scored 3 positions higher then before his spin. 

[ron.brown11]

With 40 laps to go, Honeycutt is back upon to 7th. What to roll Kaden!!  

He's up to 5th now, with 38 laps to go. Another yellow.

[ron.brown11]

35 laps to go and Honeycutt is up to 3rd!!!

Edited August 20, 2023 by ron.brown11
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[ron.brown11]

With 20 laps to go, McQueen was leading, and then ran out of gas. Your new leader is Butterbean!!

[ron.brown11]

The yellow is out with 9 laps to go. Kaden is leading, but he and Landon Huffman have beeb side by side for 7 laps. 

Coming to the green flag

[ron.brown11]

Haden took the lead, and with 6 laps remaining he too ran out of gas. Landon Hufman went on to win it BUMMER!

[NickHolt]

On 8/20/2023 at 1:02 AM, ron.brown11 said:

Haden took the lead, and with 6 laps remaining he too ran out of gas. Landon Hufman went on to win it BUMMER!

Sounds familiar.  Rick Rapp was leading an All Pro race at San Antonio Speedway back in the day and ran out with two laps remaining!

[ron.brown11]

I was really surprised, as there were 6-7 cars that ran out of gas. There wasn't an exorbitant amount of caution flag laps. I really don't think Landon Huffman had anything for Honeycutt if that didn't happen. They were allowed to add fuel during the controlled caution, so I don't get it with so many running out. Top teams too! 

I wasn't able to watch last Saturday night's CARS Tour race live. I wanted to watch Daytona instead. I had forgotten just how bad those rollover crashes there could be there. Unfortunately Ryan Preece reminded us all. I have been following his career for several years now, and absolutely love seeing him run a Tour type modified. I'm pretty sure that I didn't breathe until he popped his head out of that car. My wife doesn't like racing much, and was sitting at her computer in the living room. I said I thought to myself, this is bad. "What" she said, which surprised me. I really didn't think that I had actually voiced it out load. Then they showed the replay. "Oh no" was all she said. I can't tell you if she breathed, but I'm pretty sure I didn't until he got out. I'm sure that the sprint & midget drivers/fans will say "So what, that happens all the time at our races", and that's true too. But inertia is quite a bit different when a car weighs 1100 pounds vs 3500 pounds. 

[ron.brown11]

I was bummed to see that Honeycutt wasn't on the entry list for the Locked In 150 @ Florence Speedway Friday night. The winner of that race will get to start on the pole for the South Carolina 400 there in Nov. He also didn't race the show @ Wake County last Sat. I don't know if the Mike Darne race team didn't plan on running these shows, or if something has happened to keep them from running. Darne had the team car (Andrew Grady) at Wake Co. and is also not on the entry list for this race. I know that this race isn't a CARS Tour sanctioned race, and hope that they are going to run this show. If my memory is working today, Kaden ran the SC 400 last year for Darne. Hopefully the track & the local area won't have flooding in the area from the hurricane. This race was scheduled for tonight, but moved to Friday because of it. More than anything, I hope all those folks are safe. The race can always be rescheduled. 

[ron.brown11]

Kaden is on the entry list for this weekend's CARS Tour race @ New River All American Speedway. He'll be driving the Mike Darne entry. Although he sits 9th in the points, realistically it's starting to look like Brendan Queen is going to be the only driver that has a chance of beating Carson Kvapil for the championship this year. I also read that Kvapil is getting to race a truck series race soon. Queen is 41 points behind Kvapil, and Mason Diaz is 100 back. I think that they only have 5 races left in the season.

I received my Sept issue of Speedway Illustrated this week. Brendan Queen is on the cover. I hope that doesn't turn out to be a curse. 

There are only 20 cars listed on the pre-registration list. If that's all of the entries, this will be the smallest number of cars for a CARS Tour race this season. There have been some heavy crashes in the last 4 races unfortunately. Over half of the races this season, they have sent cars home that didn't make the field. I've never seen a race from New River, so I don't know anything about it, other than it's a 4/10 mile track. Hopefully it will be a good show, and more cars.

[ron.brown11]

Well the 125 lapper at American River. Queen started on the pole, but immediately dropped as low as 14th. to conserve tires. With 30 laps to go, Butterbean took the lead. On the last lap, Ronnie Bassett Jr nearly took Queen & himself out in turn 3. Bassett ended up 3rd, as Connor Jones made the pass when Bassett nearly spun while trying to get by Queen. Connor Jones is a teammate for Kaden Honeycutt, racing for Mike Darne Racing.

Kaden Honeycutt started 9th. and fell back to 16th at 1 point, drove back through the field to finish 6th. Mason Diaz finished 4th, and Caden Kvapil in 5th. 

There were 3 cautions, two were competition, and 1 for a spin. The starting field consisted of only 20 cars, and that was the smallest field this season. The track calls itself a tri-oval, but for all intents & purposes it's a circle. It has good side by side racing, sometimes 3 wide. I really enjoyed the show....

Edited September 11, 2023 by ron.brown11

[NickHolt]

Really interesting trip Kaden is on... Thanks for keeping up with his successes and trials.  

[ron.brown11]

That was a fun race to watch, as I hadn't ever seen one from there. It's very near the ocean (moisture), the surface is 20+ years old, and because of the ocean, there's a lot of sand on the track. Tire wear was significant to say the least. Queen was the pole sitter, and within 5 laps he was running 1.5 seconds a lap slower, as were most of the front runners. If a driver had the itch to lead, just move into the second lane and drive around everybody in front of them. Said driver would surely be passed sooner or later. You really had to pay attention to all of the comers and goers. Thank goodness the leader board tracker worked the whole race.

For the second race in a row, Kaden had ButlerBuilt seats as a sponsor. Glad to see someone giving them some backing. He also ran the 02 truck again last week. Haven't read anything to indicate that was going to continue. Too bad he cut down a right rear early, and I think he ended up last. 

I can personally attest to what sand does to race tires. We ran Goodyear slicks at Tucson Raceway Park, and yes that's in the desert. We didn't have an ocean beach sand, but there was sand none the less. Drivers had to be very careful if they were among the first to hit the track, as it was normal to see rooster tails of sand coming off the tires. If you rented the track, you always hoped that there were others that would do so too. One car would take forever to blow off the track, and no matter how many would be there, there wasn't any emergency services available (ambulance, fire truck, flagman, or wrecker). Occasionally the track would host a weekday event, aimed toward some of the local high school auto shop students. To get some race cars there for the students to see up close, they would entice teams to bring their cars out by allowing free track time. We would usually have some of all the classes, ie supers, limited LMs, mods, factory stocks, and hornets. There were no designated class practices, as it was basically a free for all. Everybody out there at once, and no flagman, or somebody operating the caution lights. Most never had spotters either. The good thing about it was that in just 5 minutes the track was blown off. The bad thing was the drastic differences in lap times. The closure rate for the supers and mods, over the factory stocks & hornets was crazy. It was wild to see the way some of them reacted when the fast cars went by. On more than 1 occasion I would see them go agricultural racing. Luckily I never saw anyone crash. The first time I ever did one of those track days, we had 4 mods show up. I think we pissed off a few of the super drivers, because we could nearly out run them. They ran 10" wide tires, while we were on 8" tires. They were only faster in the corners, we killed them on the straights. It was a lot of fun for sure. 

[ron.brown11]

I forgot to post last weekend for the Late Model Stock Car class. It was the Valley Star 150. Kaden started about 12th. He was running in the top 12 most of the laps. He made it up to 8th for a few laps, then dropped back to 17th. He got tagged and spun, dropping back to about 26th. He then climbed on his horse, and drove it back up to 11th, and that's where he finished. #77 Ward & #22 Landon Huffman finished 1st & 2nd respectively. The last 2 laps were worth the race. It reminded me a lot of the Darlington finish between Kurt Busch & Ricky Craven, as they were both leaning on each other A LOT!). And nobody was looking for a fight afterward, There were 84 cars trying to make a 40 car starting grid. It was a good race too. The qualifying heats were a blast, as 42 cars had to go home if they didn't make a transfer spot. The guy I thought was going to win, Brendan Butterbean Queen started 4th, but had some moments, but made it back to 10th, just in front of Kaden,