Kyle Busch Motorsports development driver Christopher Bell picked up his fourth asphalt Super Late Model win of the season and his second win in the CARS Tour in dominant fashion, holding back Cole Timm, who won in March, and Harrison Burton, son of former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver and NBC Sports analyst Jeff Burton, to score the victory.
“I don’t know about dominance,” Bell commented in victory lane after the race. “I was hanging on those last 40 laps. Track just got really slick. I was slipping and sliding around. The pace kept slowing down and you’re trying to keep up with what you were running and you just can’t do it. The harder you try, the more you slide so I just had to really slow down and make sure I had kept my tires underneath me and thankfully we didn’t have a late race yellow.”
Cole Timm made a late race pass on Harrison Burton to come away with a second place finish. Burton, who finished third, was proud of his effort after the struggles he and his team have had in the CARS Tour and throughout the 2015 season as a whole. Prior to the race, the team parted ways with crew chief Freddie Query, hired Chris Wimmer and build new cars. Burton had success in last weekend’s Southern Super Series Gulf Coast Doubleheader, coming away with a win at Mobile International Speedway (Alabama) after Bubba Pollard was disqualified.
“It feels really good to get a top-three here,” Burton said. “We struggled pretty bad here. We struggled everywhere really for a few months there. We have Chris Wimmer with us now and he’s working really hard and getting our stuff right. It’s only our third race together and there’s a lot more to come from us so I’m really excited for us.”
Goldsboro, North Carolina’s Clay Jones, who won the Southern National Motorsports Park Limited Late Model division championship in 2013, finished fourth in the race over fifth place finisher Quin Houff.
“I didn’t know we had that to be honest,” Jones said about his performance. “I’m proud of everybody. We worked so hard. The race before this was the worst we have run in a long time. To bounce back and have a top-five finish, we can’t ask for much more.”
CARS Super Late Model Tour results:
- #51 Christopher Bell
- #57 Cole Timm
- #12 Harrison Burton
- #67 Clay Jones
- #17 Quin Houff
- #25 Ross Kenseth
- #77 Zane Smith
- #7 Tyler Church
- #31 Kyle Grissom
- #66 Steven Wallace
- #98 Jody Measamer
- #51n Stephen Nasse
- #6 Brandon Setzer
- #14d Chris Davidson
- #12c Garrett Campbell
- #16 Lucas Jones
- #25 Stephen Leicht
- #45 Joey Mucciacciaro
- #40 Grant Galloway
- #18 Kiel Spaulding
- #88 Garrett Jones
- #4 Brandon Lynn
- #00 Lucas Ransone
- #118 Dave Mader, III
- #71 Nick Robinson
- #54 Matthew Craig
- #56 Gus Dean
