The CARS Tour — Complete Guide to Stock Car Racing's Premier Regional Series

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. Keelan also won at Hickory Motor Speedway racing Legend Cars in the ASA National Tour in 2025.

Recent Champions (LMSC)

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. Won at Southern National from 31st, charging past Lee Pulliam on lap 108. Leads the 2026 standings.

Connor Hall — The 2025 CARS Tour runner-up and back-to-back NASCAR Weekly Series national champion. Hall won at New River and Cordele in 2025 and contended for the championship into the final race at North Wilkesboro. Now building the Niece Motorsports Late Model Stock development program and making NASCAR Truck Series starts.

Landen Lewis — The defending 2025 LMSC champion. Lewis led every lap of the Window World 100 at North Wilkesboro on his way to the 2025 title. 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 Speedway, then fourth at Nashville. 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. Combines veteran racecraft with the speed to win on any given weekend.

The Tracks

Six of the CARS Tour's 2026 venues have 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. Hosted 42 NASCAR Cup races from 1958 to 1984. Richard Petty won nine here; Darrell Waltrip won eight. 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. Visit Hampton 125, May 30.

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.

Hickory Motor Speedway — The Birthplace of the NASCAR Stars. A .363-mile classroom in Newton, North Carolina, where Ralph Earnhardt, Bobby Isaac, and four generations of racing families learned the craft. Throwback Classic, August 8.

North Wilkesboro Speedway — The ghost track that came back. Built in 1946 by Enoch Staley, abandoned for twenty-six years after his death, revived in 2022 when Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Marcus Smith brought it back to life. Carson Kvapil won the Racetrack Revival that reopened the gates. One CARS Tour date in 2026, July 17.

The NASCAR Pipeline

The CARS Tour has become the most direct path from short-track racing to NASCAR. The series' most prominent graduate is Connor Zilisch, who won at Hickory Motor Speedway and 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 years old.

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. His crew chief is Rodney Childers — the same Rodney Childers who called pit strategy for Kevin Harvick's 2014 Cup championship.

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 — JRM's Late Model program feeds its O'Reilly Auto Parts Series operation, which has graduated Chase Elliott, William Byron, and Tyler Reddick to the Cup Series.