ROUGEMONT, N.C- We saw the introduction of a special event in Late Model Stock car racing this past Friday night (March 29), with the inaugural running of the Rogers Heating & Cooling Orange Krush 200 at Orange County Speedway.
It didn’t disappoint.
The race was hosted by the Ward Burton Wildlife Foundation, with all proceeds going back to the organization. Its format was simple – an invite-only, one day show, 200 laps with a halfway break, a redraw and $15,000 awarded to the winner at race’s end. The event was headlined by CARS Tour regulars such as Deac McCaskill and Bobby McCarty, along with former NASCAR stars including Ward Burton and Timothy Peters.
It was a perfect night of racing. A reminder of everything there is to love about not just Late Model Stock racing, but the short track scene as a whole.
McCarty laid down the quickest lap in the two early afternoon practice sessions and followed it up with quick time in qualifying. A blistering lap put McCarty on pole by nearly a tenth of a second over Kaden Honeycutt.
At the drop of the green, McCarty shot to the lead and began to pull away, while a fun four-car battle for second between Honeycutt, Peters, Brent Crews and Kade Brown raged on in his rearview mirror.
McCarty led flag-to-flag in the first 100 lap stint, going without challenge despite a restart just before halfway. However, things would turn upside down for McCarty during the halfway break, as he drew the No. 8 for the redraw pill, and was forced to restart eighth on lap 100.
With this unfortunate draw for McCarty, the race fell into the hands of Honeycutt and McCaskill. A frenzy of cautions during the first 40 laps following the halfway break kept the field bunched up, never allowing Honeycutt to drive away with the race.
While McCaskill and Honeycutt began to duke it out for the lead around 50 to go, McCarty struggled to get back through the field, falling as low as 13th before mounting a late charge in the closing stages.
McCaskill made one last effort to get around Honeycutt’s No. 17 for the race win as the laps wound down, but couldn’t find a way around him. Honeycutt took the checkered for his first Late Model Stock win since 2022, with McCaskill and the No. 08 team settling for second. McCarty climbed back to third in the closing laps, but ran out of time to challenge the top two.
“It feels so good, you know I haven’t won a Late Model Stock race since Ace…
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