Landon Huffman, a weekly Hickory regular last year and first-time starter in the CARS Racing Tour, earned the Hedgecock Racing Pole Award ahead of Deac McCaskill.

On the initial run, McCaskill quickly cleared Landon Huffman for the point and began to set the pace. It didn’t take long, however, for defending track champion Matt Piercy to work his way up to the lead. After a ten lap door-to-door battle with McCaskill, Piercy cleared the Southern National winner on lap 25.

After starting seventh, R.D. Smith worked his way around Piercy for the top spot on lap 42. After a quick pair of caution flags, including one for rain, Smith’s dominant run came to a screeching halt on lap 67. While in a battle for second with Josh Berry, the two made contact exiting turn two and Smith crashed hard into the outside wall. The contact damaged the nose and left-front of Berry’s car to where the crew questioned pitting for repairs but did not.

With 25 laps to go, Piercy went after McCaskill for the lead once again in a side-by-side battle. But as they came off the second turn, Piercy lost control of his No. 21 United Sewing Ford and went for a ride that brought out the caution once again. By rule, Piercy was sent to the rear of the field where he later was involved in another incident that destroyed the cars of Justin Crider and Ronald Hill.

As the checkered flag drew closer, the lead battle was intensely side-by-side and sometimes three-wide before JR Motorsports driver Berry cleared McCaskill and began to pull away. Berry drove to his fourth career CARS Tour win, his second consecutive Hickory triumph as he won the season finale there last October. McCaskill came home second, followed by Tommy Lemons, Austin McDaniel, and polesitter Landon Huffman.

“That was one of the wildest races I’ve ever had here, that was crazy!,” exclaimed an out-of-breath Josh Berry in Edelbrock Victory Lane. “I definitely want to apologize to the 16 car, we just got together and got hung. I mean, the last thing I want to do is rip the left-front off of it.

“We were a little worried at that point. I didn’t realize how bad [the damage] was, and I’m glad I didn’t, but I guess the fender flew off of it,” he continued when asked about the effects of the damage. “We struggled a little bit at the beginning of the race and I wasn’t sure we were going to have the car. The track changed a lot on us and got really slick. We were all sliding around. Man, we just had to race hard. That was fun, but that was hard. Racing Deac McCaskill is always a pleasure. I look up to him and we race hard. He kinda got me on that restart and I knew I had to dig deep and get back by him becauuse these guys deserve to win and we got it done.”

Prompted to discuss the rash of restarts towards the end of the race, Berry said, “We were just a little bit better off the corner, just enough where I could lean on him a little bit and run high until I could get the drive to clear him. I knew if we could clear him we’d be in good shape. On those restarts, every time you think you get clear and catch your breath, you’d think ‘we’re there now’ and another caution would come out and we’d do it again. Man, those guys raced hard and that had to be a hell of a race to watch. Thanks to Speedco for supporting me, and it’s always fun to win in this series, but especially here because this place has been pretty special to me.”

Late Model Stock Tour
POS DRIVER/CAR # LAPS
1 Josh Berry (88b) 125
2 Deac McCaskill (08) 125
3 Tommy Lemons, Jr. (27) 125
4 Austin McDaniel (12m) 125
5 Landon Huffman (75) 125
6 Chris Hudspeth (28) 125
7 Chris Davis (88) 125
8 Craig Stallard (42) 125
9 Christian Eckes (1) 125
10 Matt Piercy (21) 125
11 Thomas Beane (31) 125
12 Stefan Parsons (98) 123
13 Justin Crider (7) 108
14 Ronald Hill (74) 108
15 Jake Ruggles (29) 95
16 RD Smith (16) 67
17 Ryan Wilson (12) 65
18 Chase Purdy (41) 54
19 Ryan Repko (14) 53