What Is the CARS Tour?
The zMAX CARS Tour Presented by SoundGear is the premier regional stock car racing series in the eastern United States, operating as the most direct development pipeline between weekly short-track racing and the NASCAR national series. The CARS Tour is the touring sanction for Southeast Late Model Stock racing, and under its current ownership it has become the most-watched and best-produced regional touring series in the country.
In January 2023, the series was acquired by a consortium of racing icons: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick, and Justin Marks (owner of Trackhouse Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series). The new ownership group brought national visibility, increased purses, and a clear mission — to make the CARS Tour the proving ground where the next generation of NASCAR talent is found.
Divisions
The CARS Tour operates two competition divisions:
Late Model Stock Car (LMSC) — The headline division. These are purpose-built stock cars running on short tracks across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. The LMSC division is where most of the championship drama and star power resides.
Pro Late Model (PLM) — A slightly different rules package that attracts its own dedicated field. Pro Late Models run on the same cards as the LMSC division at most events. This is where fifteen-year-olds race forty-year-olds on equal machinery.
2026 CARS Tour Schedule
The 2026 CARS Tour features 13 races across some of the most iconic short tracks in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic:
| # | Date | Track | Location | Divisions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Feb 28 | Southern National Motorsports Park | Kenly, NC | LMSC / PLM |
| 2 | Mar 28 | Wake County Speedway | Raleigh, NC | LMSC |
| 3 | Apr 11 | Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway | Nashville, TN | LMSC / PLM |
| 4 | Apr 25 | Caraway Speedway | Asheboro, NC | LMSC / PLM |
| 5 | May 9 | Ace Speedway | Altamahaw, NC | LMSC / PLM |
| 6 | May 30 | Langley Speedway | Hampton, VA | LMSC |
| 7 | Jun 13 | Dominion Raceway | Thornburg, VA | LMSC |
| 8 | Jul 17 | North Wilkesboro Speedway | North Wilkesboro, NC | LMSC / PLM |
| 9 | Aug 22 | Anderson Motor Speedway | Williamston, SC | LMSC / PLM |
| 10 | Sep 4 | Florence Motor Speedway | Timmonsville, SC | LMSC / PLM |
| 11 | Sep 12 | Tri-County Speedway | Hudson, NC | LMSC / PLM |
| 12 | Oct 3 | Newport Speedway | Newport, TN | LMSC / PLM |
| 13 | Oct 17 | South Boston Speedway | South Boston, VA | LMSC / PLM |
New for 2026: Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway joined the schedule for the first time, and Newport Speedway in Tennessee is also new to the CARS Tour. The season finale is at South Boston Speedway on October 17. North Wilkesboro Speedway — the legendary track revived in 2022 after twenty-six years of abandonment — runs one date, alongside the Cup Series weekend in July.
2026 Race Results and Standings
Standings as of the post-Ace points release (after Race 5 — the last official points update before Langley). Through five LMSC events, Caden Kvapil leads the championship at 204 points with two wins. Treyten Lapcevich is second at 182 on consistency — five top-tens in five starts. Conner Jones is third at 177. Chase Burrow is fourth at 163, defending champion Landen Lewis fifth at 160 (one win in four starts). Through four PLM events, Mason Walters leads at 153, with Kaden Honeycutt second at 135 on the strength of his Caraway and Ace wins. Kvapil's third-place run at Langley (below) extended his lead.
Race 1 — Southern National Motorsports Park (Feb 28): Caden Kvapil charged from 29th to 1st in the season opener, taking the lead from Lee Pulliam on lap 108 and holding off a late restart for his third consecutive JR Motorsports victory.
Race 2 — Wake County Speedway (Mar 28): Conner Jones passed defending champion Landen Lewis on the final restart to win a chaotic race. Jones ran out of fuel under caution but was never officially lapped, then found speed when it mattered.
Race 3 — Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway (Apr 11): Caden Kvapil took the lead from Parker Eatmon on the final restart and held on to win the Tootsie's Music City Showdown — the CARS Tour's first visit to Nashville. Eatmon led all but the final ten laps. Dylan Fetcho third, Conner Jones fourth, Landen Lewis fifth. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished twelfth in a thirty-one-car field. In the Pro Late Model feature, Dawson Sutton — fresh off a seventh-place Truck Series finish at Bristol the night before — won from the front at his home track.
Race 4 — Caraway Speedway (TCPS Plumbing & Septic 250): Landen Lewis hit the orange choose-V cone before an early restart, got dropped to the rear of the field, then drove all the way back through traffic to win — his sixth career CARS Tour LMSC victory and first of 2026. In the PLM feature, Kaden Honeycutt — 2024 PLM Tour champion and a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series regular — won his fourth career CARS Tour Late Model race, running both divisions on the same day and finishing fourth in LMSC. (Full recap.)
Race 5 — Ace Speedway (May 9–10): Kaden Honeycutt swept both features at Ace — the first weekend sweep in CARS Tour history. Lewis finished P4 in the LMSC. (Full recap.)
Race 6 — Langley Speedway (Visit Hampton Virginia 125, May 30): Connor Hall went home and won. Hall — running his first CARS Tour Late Model start of the year on a one-off entry at his home track in Hampton — took the lead from teammate Landen Lewis near halfway and survived a string of late restarts. Lewis, his Niece Motorsports teammate and the defending champion, ran second and pointedly declined to move him on the restarts. Caden Kvapil drove from 15th to third — the fourth time this season he's finished top-three after starting outside the top ten — and extended his championship lead. (Full recap.)
Race 7 — Dominion Raceway (June 13): The Tour returned to the 0.400-mile Thornburg, Virginia oval, where Mini Tyrrell won the CARS Mini's Mission 125 to become the first driver ever to win twice at Dominion across its ten CARS Tour visits. (Full recap.)
Up next: North Wilkesboro Speedway (North Wilkesboro, NC), July 17 — Race 8, LMSC / PLM, alongside the Cup Series weekend.
CARS Tour West
In addition to the East series, the CARS Tour expanded to the western United States with the CARS Tour West division (Spears CARS Tour West). The 2026 West schedule features a $2.1 million total payout — a massive purse for regional touring series racing. Kevin Harvick's thirteen-year-old son Keelan Harvick competes in the West series and has already won a Pro Late Model race at the Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Recent Champions (LMSC)
| Year | Champion |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Landen Lewis |
| 2024 | Brenden Queen |
| 2023 | Carson Kvapil |
| 2022 | Carson Kvapil |
Drivers to Watch in 2026
Caden Kvapil — Driving the JR Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet full-time, with father Travis Kvapil as crew chief. Younger brother of two-time champion Carson Kvapil. Leads the 2026 standings on a run of charge-from-the-back top-threes.
Connor Hall — The 2025 CARS Tour runner-up and back-to-back NASCAR Weekly Series national champion. Now building the Niece Motorsports Late Model Stock development program and making NASCAR Truck Series starts — and still capable of winning the moment he shows up, as he did at Langley.
Landen Lewis — The defending 2025 LMSC champion, splitting 2026 between the Niece Truck program and select Late Model starts. Made his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut at St. Petersburg with Niece Motorsports in 2026.
Conner Jones — Already a 2026 race winner after taking the checkered flag at Wake County. Five career CARS Tour LMSC victories.
Lee Pulliam — One of the greatest short-track drivers of his generation. Four NASCAR Weekly national championships. Returned from a 2,387-day absence to win at South Boston in March 2026, then made his NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series debut at Martinsville, leading forty laps and finishing fifth.
Sam Butler — A consistent front-runner and championship contender in 2026.
The Tracks
The CARS Tour's 2026 venues include some of the most storied short tracks in stock car racing, several with full track guides on Grand National Today:
Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway — The Music City oval. The second-oldest continually operating track in America, 0.596 miles with 18-degree banking. First CARS Tour event: Tootsie's Music City Showdown, April 11, 2026.
South Boston Speedway — The bowl. Sixty-eight years of Late Model Stock racing in Halifax County, Virginia. Peyton Sellers' kingdom. Season finale, October 17.
Langley Speedway — The flattest track in Virginia. Six degrees of banking, two on the straights. Connor Hall's home track, where he won eleven consecutive races in 2023 — and won again on the Tour's 2026 visit.
Martinsville Speedway — The oldest track in NASCAR, home of the grandfather clock. The ValleyStar Credit Union 300 is the crown jewel of Virginia Late Model Stock racing and the final leg of the Virginia Triple Crown.
North Wilkesboro Speedway — The ghost track that came back. Built in 1946, abandoned for twenty-six years, revived in 2022 when Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Marcus Smith brought it back to life. One CARS Tour date in 2026, July 17.
Hickory Motor Speedway — The Birthplace of the NASCAR Stars. A .363-mile classroom in Newton, North Carolina. Not on the 2026 CARS Tour schedule, but central to the series' history and the careers of many of its drivers — see the full track guide.
The NASCAR Pipeline
The CARS Tour has become the most direct path from short-track racing to NASCAR. The series' most prominent recent graduate is Connor Zilisch, who won on short tracks across the Carolinas before advancing to the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series and earning a full-time NASCAR Cup Series ride with Trackhouse Racing for 2026 — at just nineteen.
Carson Kvapil won back-to-back CARS Tour championships in 2022 and 2023 driving for JR Motorsports, then moved to the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series full-time. The ownership group's NASCAR connections (Earnhardt Jr., Harvick, Burton, and Marks) give CARS Tour drivers unprecedented visibility with Cup Series team owners and talent evaluators. The JR Motorsports pipeline runs directly through CARS Tour short tracks.
How to Watch
All CARS Tour events are streamed live and exclusively on FloRacing (floracing.com). FloRacing also operates the Flodium program, a content-creation fund that incentivizes CARS Tour teams and drivers to produce behind-the-scenes content and grow the series' digital audience.
Why It Matters
Under its new ownership, the CARS Tour has become the most important feeder series in stock car racing outside of the NASCAR national ladder. For Grand National Today, the CARS Tour is a primary coverage beat — the place where tomorrow's NASCAR stars are racing today.
Explore the CARS Tour
- 2026 CARS Tour Schedule
- Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway — Track Guide
- South Boston Speedway — Track Guide
- Langley Speedway — Track Guide
- Martinsville Speedway — Track Guide
- North Wilkesboro Speedway — Track Guide
- Virginia Triple Crown Guide
- NASCAR Cup Series Guide
- Craftsman Truck Series Guide
- Driver Directory
- Team Directory
- Standings & Stats
- Latest Racing Coverage