Granite Falls, N.C. – The zMax CARS Tour visited the 0.4-mile short track Tri-County Motor Speedway on Saturday (Oct. 12) night and the racing lived up to expectation.
Drivers ran out of fuel. Some left with wrecked racecars. The Pro Late Model race ended early due to an 11 p.m. ET track curfew and the original driver who received the confetti bath didn’t end up with the win.
The series’ 10th trip to Tri-County was my first time attending a CARS event. Conner Jones saved enough fuel to win the Late Model Stock race, with Kaden Honeycutt emerging victorious on the Pro Late Model side.
Through it all, there were three prevailing storylines. Here are our takeaways from the CARS Tour’s penultimate race weekend.
Fuel Saving on a Short Track
In all my years attending races, both as a fan and media, I’ve never seen a driver run out of gas, climb out of their racecar, take off their helmet, speak to the media, climb back in the car after their pit crew filled it with gas and return to the race – all while still on the lead lap.
Until Saturday night, that is. Because that’s exactly what happened to Mini Tyrrell.
After qualifying second, Tyrrell ran inside the top three for nearly the whole evening. He snatched the lead late and was in position to snag Saturday’s victory. But with the myriad of cautions, misfortune struck him with two laps to go.
Tyrrell’s team refueled his No. 81 and he indeed stayed on the lead lap, but couldn’t rally to a finish symbolic of his performance. The Virginian wound up relegated to a 15th-place result.
He entered Tri-County with an outside chance at the title – one he could have bolstered with the win. Instead his championship hopes are gone, because he was one of several drivers who ran out of fuel late.
“Utter heartbreak,” Tyrrell told Frontstretch post-race. “I don’t know, I must be allergic to victory lane or something this year cause I have done nothing but run second. Had this one in the bag by a mile and cautions come out when some guys racing out back for, you know, 20-something. Why they’re wrecking, God only knows. But yeah, we just ran out of gas.
“I was coasting and saving fuel and cutting the car off from the first yellow, which was at [lap] 24. I came over the radio and said, ‘Should I just save fuel to just to be safe?’
“‘Yeah, save fuel.’ Brandon coached me through that. So I started doing it. Every caution…
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