Kyle Grissom enters the Championship Auto Racing Series (CARS) Super Late Model Tour’s final race of the 2015 season in the championship hunt, nine points behind Cole Timm.  Despite being winless in the inaugural season of the CARS Tour, Grissom’s consistency has kept him in contention throughout the year.

“Obviously, we would have liked to have won a race or a couple of races by now. That’s really been the only disappointment,” Grissom said.  “We’ve been in position a couple of times. We were in a good position at Motor Mile and got black flagged for jumping the restart. Outside of that, we’ve been a top five car, top three car every week. That’s not too bad, but it’s a little bit disappointing that we haven’t been able to pull off a win.”

Grissom hopes to change that this weekend, as the series concludes Saturday night at Hickory Motor Speedway. Grissom finished third when the CARS Tour visited Hickory in May, one of six top-five finishes for the Concord, North Carolina native this season.

This weekend’s Liberty University 300 will feature 25 more laps for the Super Late Models than the previous stop at Hickory, and the series has since switched tire suppliers, from American Racer to Hoosier. However, Grissom believes that “same old Hickory” will ultimately dictate who comes away victorious.

“I’ve never run the Super Late Models with the [Hoosier] F-45 tires there,” Grissom said. “I’ve run the Late Models there. I think it will be a good bit different with those tires, rather than the American Racers.  That’s been so long ago, little things have changed here and there. You can look back at that race as a baseline, but it’ll be a good bit different.”

“It’ll always be the same old Hickory, regardless of the car or tire,” Grissom added. “It’s wore out, it’s bumpy, it’s hard to get around. The guy who has the best car usually ends up winning at Hickory. If you miss the setup a little bit, you’re not gonna find any comfort or luck. It’s always tough to hit a good setup there, but we’ll go up there on Friday.”

Grissom acknowledged that the change in schedule will alter his team’s plan to dial in the setup on his #31 Harrison’s Public Safety machine. Originally, the event was schedule for Sunday afternoon, with practice sessions on Friday and Saturday. However, forecasts of rain throughout Sunday forced the CARS Tour to reschedule the racing to Saturday night, compacting the weekend into a two-day show. This gives Grissom and his competitors less time to practice over the weekend to find that all-important setup.

“I was looking forward to Friday and Saturday practicing, but now they moved the race to Saturday night,” Grissom said. “So now we won’t get as much practice. Hopefully we’ll come off the truck good and be able to find a good setup pretty quick.”

Grissom spoke highly of the CARS Tour’s inaugural season. Grissom noted that this weekend’s festivities at Hickory, highlighted by a $40,000 “Double Duty Dare” bonus to a driver who can win both the Super Late Model and Late Model Stock features on Saturday evening, have brought competition and excitement to the region.

“I think it’s been everything it was built up to be,” Grissom said about the series. “It’s kinda taken over this part of the Southeast as far as racing goes. It’s really the only main traveling series. It’s had strong car counts all year long, it’s been very competitive. I think it lived up to the hype. They’re doing everything they can to grow the series. The $40,000 deal is pretty huge. It’s gonna be pretty exciting to see what they have in the works for next year.”

While the championship battle will go down to Grissom and Timm, Grissom noted that he hasn’t spent much time around Timm on the track this season.

“It’s kinda weird. It doesn’t seem like we’ve raced around each other a whole lot,” Grissom said about Timm.  “He’s definitely been strong all year. He always has good speed. Definitely it’s been a good battle. They’ve done their homework this year and been up front the whole time.”

Grissom noted that, with the cushion Timm holds in the points standings, he can only focus on putting together a strong effort in the final race of the season and hope the cards fall his way in the championship picture.

“He’s going to have to have some bad luck. and we need to have some good luck. All we can do is qualify up front, lead laps, and win the race.”