CARS Tour Guide — Stock Car Racing's Premier Regional Series | GNT

What Is the CARS Tour?

The CARS Tour (Championship Auto Racing Series Tour) 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 tour traces its lineage to the USAR Hooters Cup series founded in 1995, which evolved through several iterations before taking its current form around 2014. The 2026 season is the series' 30th anniversary.

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 most competitive and best-produced regional touring series in the country. The series is officially known as the zMAX CARS Tour.

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 15 races across some of the most iconic short tracks in the Southeast:

#	Date	Track	Location	Divisions
1	Feb 21	Coastal Plains Raceway	Lumberton, NC	LMSC / PLM
2	Feb 28	Southern National Motorsports Park	Kenly, NC	LMSC / PLM
3	Mar 28	Wake County Speedway	Raleigh, NC	LMSC
4	Apr 11	Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway	Nashville, TN	LMSC / PLM
5	Apr 25	Caraway Speedway	Asheboro, NC	LMSC / PLM
6	May 9	Ace Speedway	Altamahaw, NC	LMSC / PLM
7	May 30	Langley Speedway	Hampton, VA	LMSC
8	Jun 13	Dominion Raceway	Thornburg, VA	LMSC
9	Jul 17	North Wilkesboro Speedway	North Wilkesboro, NC	LMSC / PLM
10	Aug 8	Hickory Motor Speedway	Newton, NC	LMSC / PLM
11	Aug 22	Anderson Motor Speedway	Williamston, SC	LMSC / PLM
12	Sep 4	Florence Motor Speedway	Timmonsville, SC	LMSC / PLM
13	Sep 12	Tri-County Speedway	Hudson, NC	LMSC / PLM
14	Oct 3	Newport Speedway	Newport, TN	LMSC / PLM
15	Oct 17	South Boston Speedway	South Boston, VA	LMSC / PLM

New for 2026: Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway joins the schedule for the first time. Newport Speedway in Tennessee is also new to the CARS Tour. The season finale moves to South Boston Speedway. North Wilkesboro Speedway — the legendary track revived in 2022 after twenty-six years of abandonment — is reduced to one date, running alongside the Cup Series weekend in July. The earliest-ever season opener ran February 21 at Coastal Plains Raceway.

2026 Race Results and Standings

Through three races, Caden Kvapil leads the LMSC championship standings with two wins in three events:

Race 1 — Southern National Motorsports Park (Feb 28): Caden Kvapil charged from 29th to 1st, 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. Next: Caraway Speedway, April 25.

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)

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. 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.

How to Watch

All CARS Tour events are streamed live and exclusively on FloRacing (floracing.com). FloRacing also operates the Flodium program, a $100,000 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.

The Charlotte Mercury

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