CARS Tour @ Wake Co

[ron.brown11]

Landon Lewis, driving Harvick's #62 wins. That's the first win for him on the tour. He got into his teammate Crews, last week's winner, when Lewis got loose under Crews with less than 10 to go. That wasn't the bad impact for Crews, that came a couple of laps later. Isabella Robusto was running 3rd, and turned under Crews, at the same time Queen was turning under her. Three wide does not work at Wake Co, and Crews hit the turn 3 wall. And a local named Haddock spun trying to avoid him, but ended up backing into him. The Tour officials then made a call that didn't make sense. They posted Robusto for causing the crash. I don't think that Crews or Isabella realized that they were 3 wide, until the last second. Queen was the one that put them there, and it was a last second dive. He never touched her, but she touched Crews. So I'm guessing that they are still bent on posting any contact. Crews' car is a Harvick car sponsored by Mobil One. Robusto is a Lee Pulliam car sponsored by Mobil One. Until the Crews crash, the top 4 cars belonged to Harvick & Pulliam.

Positions 1-5: Lewis; Lapsovich; Queen; Tyrell; Millington. Positions 6-10: Bailey (Local), Haislip (L); Brown; Huffman; Haddock (L). 11-15: Hall; Jones (L); Pierce; Crews (led the most laps); Robusto. 16-19: Isles Jr; Caden Kvapil; Vuncannon (L); McCaskill. McCaskill blew a right front going into turn 3 about 10 laps into the race, and tried to knock down the wall. Man what a bad season that guy has had. 

Here's a night where qualifying didn't equate to a good/bad finish. Hall qualified 3rd, and nearly crashed the whole field coming to green, as it looked like he missed a shift. Amazingly nobody crashed. He then dropped back to 6th, and ran in that area for a while. Then he dropped back, running 8th to 14th for a while. When Crews crashed near the end, he had gotten bak up to 6th. Over the last few laps, he got moved, and dropped back to 11th, where he finished. Queen, on the other hand qualified 14th. By lap 40 he was running 6th. He slowly worked his was up to second, but on the restart for Crews' crash, he opted for the outside pole. He finally got bank into the lower preferred groove in 4th. He was only able to get third at the checkers. I thought he would have won it if he'd restarted 3rd, as his car wasn't that good in the outside lane all night. He's won a lot more races than me, but I bet he would like to have the restart over again. There was only 1 car that could start on the outside pole, and hold onto second, and that was Isabella Robusto, and she did it 3 times. Her car a really good out there, and she was spot on, on her restarts.

This race only had 3 yellows that weren't comp cautions. It was a very fast race, on a banked 1/4 mile track. It's also really narrow. They only had 19 cars show. I don't know if that's because of some getting wadded up last week, or teams figured they they'd get wadded up this week at that bullring. Deak McCaskill's car was the only one that looks to need extensive work, as it looks like he'll need a front clip.

Hall came into the night leading Queen by 11 points. Neither ever led a lap. I don't remember how many points are awarded for each position, but Queen finished 8 positions better. So I think that Queen should be the new points leader next week. The only time Hall's car looked good was in qualifying. That's not like him.

The Pro LMSs didn't race tonight, but they did announce that Honeycutt & Davis are tied for the points lead. The are running at Florence Speedway In Timmonsville, SC, Cale Yarborough hometown. That race is on Friday night, so hopefully R&S Race Cars can get Deak's car fixed in time.

The CARS Tour held a meeting between owners; drivers, and Hoosier Tire. But this has more to do with the serial numbers that don't match up. They're working on that, trying to make sure all the teams can get sets that do match up. I think the bigger issue of these ST2 tires isn't going to be addressed until after the season, as they only have 4 races to go. I think a new tire for the series will come next season, as they didn't address that at the meeting today.

As tight as Wake Co is, there was a lot less bumping, banging & moving guys tonight. I kind of expected more because of the track being so tight in the turns and the straights. And how rough everyone was to each other last week. The top 2 qualifying cars were local driver.

[24nomo]

Going back to the Old Hoosier F-45 for the remainder of the season.  Lets see if they tear up just as much .   LOL

[ron.brown11]

23 hours ago, 24nomo said:

Going back to the Old Hoosier F-45 for the remainder of the season.  Lets see if they tear up just as much .   LOL

I saw that. I'm happy about that. They've wrecked an awful lot of cars, with nobody being able to separate. There's no doubt that the racing was exciting on the ST2s, but the carnage was unsustainable. It also makes for exciting races, just a little differently, as there are comers & goers on the F-45s. That requires a lot more race management for the drivers & crew chiefs. With this being basically a 2 day show, and an extra set of tires to practice on, hopefully the teams can find a good setup. Last year's notes show help. Both days though are showing a 40% chance of rain. I hope that doesn't happen, and everyone gets things sorted out. The tire change only applies to the LMSC teams, as the Pros will still run on the ST1 & ST2 tires.

I saw the driver entry list, and Honeycutt is only listed for the Pros. I was hoping to see him in both. On the cover of this month's Speedway Illustrated mag, Connor Hall's picture is there, with a good story on him. Honeycutt was also mentioned. You can barely see the nose of the car behind him, but it's Honeycutt in the #17 car. I was bummed about his truck race last week, as the pit crew again let him down. Milwaukee isn't a track that forgives easily, if you get stuck back in traffic.  

[NickHolt]

Milwaukee should be interesting!