Justin Carroll has been slowly making a name for himself in Late Model Stock Car racing and in 2019 he looks to add his name to the short list of CARS Tour champions.
Carroll will team with crew chief, Jason Stanley who has been helping him part-time for several seasons but will now work full-time for Justin Carroll Motorsports. Stanley, who has helped several teams over the last few seasons will concentrate his effort on Carroll’s car and the CARS Tour championship.
“Having Jason on full-time will really help our program,” Carroll told RACE22.com. “He’s helped us for a while now but having him there when he’s working on other cars is hard and having him full-time will allow him to concentrate solely on our car and making it better every week.”
Carroll knows that having the right pieces and parts in place is important for making a run at the CARS Tour championship.
“The CARS Tour has the best competition, the best drivers and if you win it’s a big deal,” continued Carroll. “The returns you get from the CARS Tour and the social media promotion is big and winning against guys like Bobby McCarty, Tommy Lemons, Deac McCaskill, Josh Berry, and those other guys is huge.”
Carroll wouldn’t be able to bring Stanley in full-time or chase the CARS Tour championship if it wasn’t for a new partnership with Green Energy Concepts, Inc. (GECI) and his longtime sponsor Industrial Battery and Charger, Inc. (IBCI).
Carroll has spent most of the last few seasons since his first Late Model Stock Car win in 2014 at Ace Speedway, traveling around to different tracks and knows that his strength on the CARS Tour will be the tracks he’s really familiar with such as Hickory where he has a lot of seat time.
“Langley Speedway is somewhere we’ve run a lot and I think we have a leg up on the CARS Tour regulars there like Hickory. They really have a leg up when we go to Southern National, Motor Mile, South Boston, and Dominion but places like Hickory, Langley, and Ace where we won at twice this past season will be somewhere we can really shine.”
Carroll who races at PRW Chassis car will have the three primary powerplants of the CARS Tour this season with a Harrington Enforcer, Ford SR347 and a Spec engine to use where they feel one will have the advantage over the other.
Carroll says he’ll likely skip the IceBreaker at Myrtle Beach Speedway in three weeks to continue preparing for the CARS Tour opener at Southern National Motorsports Park.
“I’ve never been to Southern National, so we’re going to be going there to test in the next couple weeks. We’ve got to really get prepared for that first race and while we haven’t ruled out going to the IceBreaker we will likely just wait for Southern National to be our first race.”
Carroll will also compete in most of the big races around the region including the Virginia Triple Crown featuring Martinsville Speedway, South Boston Speedway, and Langley Speedway’s big races. Carroll will also compete in the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown as well as several local races around the region throughout the season.
Carroll’s team will also field a car once again for the 2018 Hickory Motor Speedway Late Model Stock Car track champion, Jacob Heafner. Heafner won’t be running for points anywhere but will compete in select CARS Tour races as well as weekly races during the season.
Cover photo by Jaden Austin.
