The CARS Tour’s Sophomore season kicks off on Sunday afternoon with 150-lap races for both the Super Late Models and the Late Model Stock Car series. In this preview we’ll look at who’s going to be the strongest drivers this season in the CARS Tour Super Late Model Series.
As most of you know we’re primarily a Late Model Stock Car website but with the CARS Tour we step out of our normal element and cover the series better than anyone else did in it’s Inaugural season. This year we’re going to ramp that coverage of and we’re bringing in some people who know more about Super Late Models than our core staff does.
We’ve had a lot of help from CARSTourDigest.com with their full library of statistics and Driver Ratings from the 2015 season, which they will have for every race this season. CARS Tour Digest is a great resource for everything CARS Tour and we’re excited to be partnering with them this season to make our coverage of the CARS Tour even better than last year.
With that said, we’re ready to debut the CARS Tour Super Late Model Power Rankings Pre-Season Edition as part of our Stock Car Steel and SRI Performance Series Profile of the CARS Tour. We’ll debut the CARS Tour Late Model Stock Car Power Rankings on Friday but here’s the Pre-Season Edition of the Super Late Model Power Rankings for the CARS Tour.
Best of the Rest
Jared Irvan – Son of former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Ernie Irvan, Jared is making his way on his own and this weekend will make his first CARS start for Coulter Motorsports Super Late Model team. He made two starts in the PASS Series with the Coulter team last season. He’s been a great qualifier but has one lone Super Late Model win in the PASS Series at Anderson Motor Speedway. With the Coulter team he could be one of the guys to beat this season.
Stephen Leicht – He made seven starts on the CARS Tour last season for Lee Faulk Racing and while he wasn’t able to win a race he was competitive winning one pole but only garnering a single top ten finish. He did lead 21 laps according to the stats on CARSTourDigest.com. With nearly a full season under his belt last year back in a Super Late Model he could play a bigger role this season.
Harrison Burton – He only made six starts last season with two top five finishes coming from those starts. If he runs more races this season we expect this young driver to continue to develop into one of the top Super Late Model drivers in the country.
Lucas Jones – He was one of the seven drivers to make a start in every one of the 10 races on the CARS Super Late Model Tour last season with three top ten finishes. He could easily be much improved this season and mix it up with the best of them.
10 – Joey “Mooch” Mucciacciaro
He made seven starts last season and finished ninth in points, the highest finisher in points to run only seven races. His average finish last season was 11.57 but racing for Lee Faulk Racing this season as a teammate to Stephen Leicht will likely put him in a position to run and finish better on the tour.
9 – Stephen Nasse
He’s another driver who didn’t run the full CARS Tour last season with only seven starts on the season and finished just behind Joey Mooch in points in tenth position. Nasse will look to get to victory lane at Southern National Motorsports Park this weekend to get his season started off on the right foot.
8 – Quin Houff
He finished fourth in points last season with a win at Tri-County Motor Speedway to his credit and Quin Houff racked up five top five finishes and seven top ten finishes with zero DNF’s. His average finish was 9.10 but he was in the mix at nearly every race. Quin seems to have found a good place in the CARS Super Late Model Tour.
7 – Tyler Ankrum
He only made one start on the Super Late Model side of things and didn’t finish the event but Ankrum made his presence known over on the Late Model Stock Car tour last season. He racked up six top five finishes on the Late Model Stock Car side but this season he’s moved his focus to the Super Late Model and looks to be one of the drivers to contend with this season.
6 – Clay Jones
Clay Jones’ name is synonymous as one of the top Limited Late Model drivers, winning races all over the place at the tracks all around the region including Southern National Motorsports Park, Wake County and even scoring a win at the new Carteret County Speedway last fall. Jones also competed on the CARS Super Late Model Tour full time finishing fifth in points with two top fives and five top ten finishes. This season he’ll be looking to improve on those stats and get his first win.
5 – Steven Wallace
He had a roller coaster season last year with cellar lows and mountain highs including one win on the CARS Super Late Model Tour. He also had four DNF’s in 2015. If he can keep his nose clean and finish all the races this season he could easily be one of the winningest drivers of the season as well as a guy who could contend for the championship.
4 – Kyle Grissom
Kyle Grissom finished second in points last season on the CARS Super Late Model Tour but he did that with zero wins on the season. He did have seven top five finishes and ten top ten finishes in the ten race tour. Grissom was extremely consistent actually recording the lowest average finish of the season at 4.40 just .20 better than CARS Tour Champion Cole Timm. Grissom’s consistency will keep him in the hunt if he competes for the championship this year but he’s ready to get to victory lane.
3 – Cole Timm
It’s hard to imagine that the defending series champion is ranked third in the Power Rankings but there’s two other young guns that are gunning for his top spot and we think will have a strong season. Timm picked up a win to open the season last spring at Southern National Motorsports Park but never got back to victory lane. He did grab three pole awards as well as seven top fives and ten top ten finishes and an average finish of 4.60.
2 – Brandon Setzer
He ran all but one of the ten races on the CARS Super Late Model Tour garnering two wins as the second winningest driver of the season behind Christopher Bell, who won three races in four starts. Setzer is one of the top up and coming young drivers and he’s looking to make the CARS Tour his own this season as he chases the championship and more wins.
1 – Zane Smith
Aside from Ty Majeski, Zane Smith is easily the hottest name in Super Late Model racing especially on the east coast. Smith won several events last season between the PASS South Series and the CARS Tour. He only got to victory lane once in the CARS Tour but was the third most consistent driver averaging a 8.60 with two top fives and nine top ten finishes. Nothing has really changed for Zane Smith for this season which means his Gary Crooks Racing Team is only getting stronger and he could easily be a guy who could dominate the CARS Super Late Model Tour this season.
