McCaskill, Nasse Win at South Boston; Berry & Rouse CARS Champions
The CARS Tour traveled to the freshly paved and unbelievably fast South Boston Speedway this past Saturday for their final event of the 2017 season. The Late Model Stock field was twenty plus cars strong, and the Super field was set at about fifteen. Â Brandon Setzer would win knock out qualifying for the Super Late Model portion, and Phillip Morris would win the pole in Late Model Stock. The points coming into this final event were extremely tight in both divisions between Cole Rouse and Setzer in Supers, and Josh Berry/Layne Riggs in Late Model Stock.
The first event of the night was the Late Model Stock portion of the CARS Tour, led to the green by Layne Riggs and Phillip Morris. Layne Riggs had a rear end failure early on in this event which would end his bid for a title. The race was now between Josh Berry and teammate Anthony Alfredo, but up front, it was all Phillip Morris. Deac McCaskill kept Morris within striking distance for most of the race until he finally made his move. Once Deac had gotten around Morris, the #01 machine went up in smoke due to a blown engine. Josh Berry would struggle most of the night to find any kind of speed but managed to seal the CARS Tour title by a couple points over teammate Anthony Alfredo. Deac McCaskill would go on to win the event in dominant fashion over a hard-charging Stacy Puryear and Timothy Peters.
Arguably the best CARS Tour Super Late Model event took place Saturday night at South Boston. Brandon Setzer and Christian Eckes led the field to the green. Setzer would jump out to an early lead over Eckes until an early spin by Jared Fryar brought out our first caution. Setzer would lose the lead to Eckes on the restart and pace behind him until around halfway. Right before our halfway caution, Setzer would lose control of his #6 machine in turn number three, the contact would, unfortunately, end his night and his chances at a Championship. Eckes would lead the field until Jake Crum moved him out of the way on a restart, resulting in Eckes having to work his way back up through the field. On his way through the field Eckes had contact with Cole Rouse on the front stretch resulting in Rouses’ car upside down against the catch fence in turn one, luckily for Rouse, he had locked up the championship at this point. Stephen Nasse had inherited the lead at this point while Jake Crum was hot on his tail. Crum ended up moving Nasse with about eight laps to go, Crum was penalized for rough driving which then gave the lead to Zane Smith and Jared Fryar. Fryar would be run over by Smith in turn three which would bring out, you guessed it, another late race caution. Nasse, Crum, and Craig would have a three-wide battle on the next restart with three laps to go. Coming to the checkered flag Matt Craig would send Jake Crum in turn three and Stephen Nasse would slip under both of them and steal the win. After the race tempers would flare between the Craig and Crum crew resulting in a pit road brawl. Matt Craig would finish second, Zane Smith third and Dan Speeney fourth.
Sources: Brad Newman