Amidst the rash of tire failures on Saturday night at Orange County Speedway, Josh Berry outlasted Deac McCaskill to win back-to-back races and stay perfect in CARS Late Model Stock Car competition this season.
Berry has been on a massive run of success this past month, winning his CARS Tour debut on July 11 at Motor Mile Speedway in Radford, Virginia. He followed that up by winning an Orange County weekly event on July 25 and backed it up with a CARS triumph a week later at the same storied half-mile.
It wasn’t without a lack of effort from McCaskill who stayed beside or behind Berry during the final restart that occurred with 11 laps to go but just couldn’t complete the pass. McCaskill repeatedly drove up to the bumper and door but could not get any further, stalling out in the center of the corner and on the bottom of the track.
Berry praised McCaskill and credited his ability to choose the outside as the leader for the reason he held his pursuer back.
“Man, that was awesome,” Berry said. “That was a hard race. Tough race. Long race. We just had to stay focused during all those restarts. Every restart was like racing for the win. It was so important to have the outside — we were so good on the outside. We just had to race really hard.
“If I ever lost the lead to Deac — that was going to be it. He would have taken the outside and that would have been it. He raced me so hard but clean. He’s a hell of a race car driver and I respect him a lot.”
A tired and dejected McCaskill returned the gesture of respect and agreed that the race would have been different if he could have simply got around the JR Motorsports No. 88 which was equipped with a Chevrolet crate motor.
“I was trying to make him make a mistake,” McCaskill said. “I got a good run off of Turn 4 and wanted to clear him and if I could have just gotten on the outside, it would have been interesting.
“He’s got a lot of talent. I hope he goes a long way. He deserves it. He gets up on the wheel.”
Berry only lost the lead for two laps when Jamey Caudill overtook him on the Lap 52 restart. Berry was back around him by the end of Lap 54.
Overall, Berry defeated McCaskill, Tyler Ankrum, Caudill and Tommy Lemons Jr. to complete the top-5.
While McCaskill lost the race, he gained ground on championship leaders Brayton Haws and Myatt Snider. Both Haws and Snider overcame issues in the middle stages of the race to return to the top-10 but bounced off each other several times in the final two laps and could only finish sixth and 10th respectively.
Unofficially, Haws leaves Orange County with a five point lead over Snider while McCaskill climbs to within 10 points of the top spot. There are three races remaining in the debut CARS Tour Late Model Stock season.
“It was a great night for us in the points,” McCaskill conceded. “We have three more to go so we have to stay focused. We’ll try to go get them at Concord.”
The next CARS Tour Late Model Stock and Super Late Model doubleheader is the Lead 2 Real Estate Group 200 at Concord Speedway in Concord, North Carolina.
The complete Late Model Stock results from Orange County can be viewed below.
- Josh Berry
- Deac McCaskill
- Tyler Ankrum
- Jamey Caudill
- Tommy Lemons
- Brayton Haws
- Austin McDaniel
- Rusty Skewes
- Thomas Beane
- Myatt Snider
- Michael Fose
- Ronald Hill
- Chris Davis
- Blake Stallings
- Bradley McCaskill
- RD Smith
- Justin Crider
- Stefan Parsons
- Todd Gilliland
- Jake Crum
- Jeff Oakley
- Chris Hudspeth
- Craig Stallard
- Robert Tyler
- Roddy Sterling
