“It’s a chess match until it’s go time, and tonight we played the right moves,” Sam Yarbrough said as he beamed a smile in Victory Lane. Tonight, the Myrtle Beach regular played the tire management game and excelled in his first CARS Tour start which lead to a huge victory.

Many drivers decided to drop back at the drop of the green flag to save their tires from the cheese-grater that is called Myrtle Beach Speedway; yet, Deac McCaskill didn’t. For 80 laps, McCaskill showed poise and dominance through his performance as he led the field.

However, lap 80 is when Yarbrough stormed to the lead.

After attaining the lead,  it was smooth sailing for Yarbrough. “It was easy to save tires. I was running behind Deac the whole time. He dictated the pace, and we did what we did. When it was time to go, I just made a move. It stuck, and away we went.”

That is until a nightmare became a reality. Kate Dallenbach was collected in a skirmish in turn two and spun around on the backstretch, bringing out the caution with just two laps to go.

“For five or so laps, I was saying to myself ‘no cautions, no cautions, no cautions’ and then there was the smoke coming off of two.”

This did not stop Yarbrough from doing what he knew he needed to do. He knew that if he pinched McCaskill down on the inside, this would kill the ability for McCaskill to get the necessary forward drive on the restart.

Needless to say, it worked. Just two laps later, Yarbrough brought his machine to Victory Lane.

After leading 80 laps, many would believe McCaskill to be disappointed, but he wasn’t. He understands that Myrtle Beach is a track where Yarbrough is extremely dominant.

“He’s tough. He was just a little better through the center of three and four than I was. . . It was a good night for us. We sat on the pole, and jumped to the lead. I tried not to run too hard. I tried to run Sam’s pace, but I don’t think we ran too hard at the start. When it was time to go, he took off and he got by me here on the outside and it was over then,” McCaskill claimed. He said he could run with Yarbrough, but felt that he was “running it to death.”

The last caution was not what McCaskill wanted to see. Luckily, he had just enough to keep up the pace and made his way across the finish line in the second position. It was a much needed night for his championship hopes. It also was a huge confidence boost after a few tough races he had in the previous weeks where he had fallen victim to Myatt Snider, his championship competitor.

As the race ended, the tail end of the field got into a pileup in the middle of turn four including drivers Jeff Oakley, Roddey Sterling, and Haley Moody, who was making her CARS Tour debut. It is not clear what caused the incident.