Last year Brenden Queen dominated the CARS Tour race at Dominion Raceway until he didn’t.
A battle with Carson Kvapil led to Bobby McCarty ultimately stealing the victory by
nine-one-thousandths of a second resulting in an evening of heartbreak.
This year he returned with his #03 Best Repair Service Lee Pulliam Performance Toyota for
another shot at the Mini’s Mission 125. The race partners the 30 drivers with families from
Walter Reed battling childhood cancer; this year Queen returned with Landon, his guest from
last year, to celebrate Landon’s triumph of ringing the bell to indicate he is in remission.
After failing to get Landon the checkered flag a year ago, Queen wanted redemption and to get
his friend to Victory Lane.
Queen left little doubt that he was the one to beat from the start. The Chesapeake, Virginia
native broke a zMAX CARS Tour track record in qualifying with a lap time of 14.98 to earn the
pole award. While that was a promising start to the evening for Queen, it was noted that no pole winner had ever won in CARS Tour competition at the High Banked Ring of Fire.
His challenge was made tougher with the defending track champion Peyton Sellers beside him
on the front row. Queen would need to fend off challengers from his CARS Tour peers like
McCarty, Kvapil and points leader Conner Hall, who got into Queen’s back bumper en route to a Langley win a week ago. Also in the field hoping to shake things up for Queen were Dominion
Raceway weekly racers Landon Pembleton, Davey Callihan, and Dustin Storm.
In fact, the entry list was so stout that it was the largest field any CARS Tour race had seen.
Unfortunately Ronnie Bassett Jr and Tate Fogleman were sent home after failing to qualify in the top 30 to make the race.
The green flag flew in Spotsylvania County, but the cars would not even get to Turn 1 before a
yellow. A huge stack-up caused carnage taking out Deac McCaskill, Dustin Storm, Kade Brown,
and Chase Burrow on the front stretch of lap 1.
On lap 4 another yellow would take out Mason Diaz and Chad McCumbee after Diaz was spun
by Landen Lewis.
A restart saw Queen settle back into the lead, but Peyton Sellers and Isabella Robusto would
make significant contact that pressed the #26 Clarence’s Steakhouse machine into the wall.
McCarty and Ryan Millington would move up to second and third, while Sellers and Robusto
would drift back. For Sellers, the contact was the harbinger of calamity as he was freight trained back to 11th. Robusto would drop positions as well to Bryce Applegate and the #8 of Kvapil.
On lap 27 Treyten Lapcevich made a move on Robusto and nearly spun the #81 of Mini Tyrrell
jockeying for 6th place. Meanwhile, Connor Hall was playing the role of hard charger; Hall had
qualified 15th, but by this point of the race he was up to 9th.
Five laps later the night would end for Sellers who, due to the earlier contact, blew a tire.
Queen would again lead the restart with McCarty, Millington, Applegate, and Tyrrell behind him.
Around lap 50 Millington would pass McCarty for second and Tyrrell would pass Applegate for
fourth. Queen would be leading at the halfway point while Hall was passing Kvapil for 6th after
the Bass Pro Shops late model would get into the wall coming out of Turn 4.
As Queen would start to lap cars, it looked like Millington might be able to challenge him for the
lead, but a competition caution came out with 48 to-go. Queen would again rocket out to the
lead and McCarty would begin to drift back after being passed by Millington, Hall, Tyrrell, and
Kvapil. Hall passed Millington for second around the time Buddy Isles Jr got into the wall in Turn 2 to bring out another caution.
McCarty used this opportunity to come to the pits and retire his car ending his night and his
hopes of repeating as the winner. He was the 10th car to see his race end early, thus taking out
1⁄3 of the field.
“We were losing oil pressure,” said McCarty. “We just can’t afford to blow a motor up at this point in the year.”
On lap 103 Katie Hettinger would be the 11th car to call it a night when she was involved in an
incident with Jonathan Findley.
With nine to-go Mason Bailey, Jacob Heafner, and Findley would wreck to continue the carnage.
Queen had already survived two restarts with Hall gunning for him and it was hard not to get
deja vu from their Langley battle in which Hall made significant contact and nearly spun Queen
for the lead late in the race.
The final restart of the night saw Hall give it his all, but ultimately Queen would again clear for
the lead and pull away. In fact, the battle for third was the best racing action in the closing laps,
as Connor Jones and Treyten Lapcevich were wrestling back and forth for the final spot of the
podium.
Brenden “Butterbean” Queen would see the white flag from the DR flagstand and a circuit later
he would see the checkered. Hall would finish second, while Lapcevich would edge Jones for
third. Queen led every lap from the pole to cap off his night of redemption.
“I let him [Landon] down last year, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again,” said Queen. “It’s
such a special night. To get the track record and lead every lap are the nights you dream of”
Checking Dominion Raceway off his list was a big deal for the Virginia native who said this is
also a home track for him.
“I’ve never won here. I’ve raced here with my family car back in the day and with last year being
so close, it’s awesome to finally get one at Dominion,” said Queen. “I raced at Old Dominion in a
Legend car and only finished second.”
Hall was happy to finish second after starting 15th, but said it would have been hard for anyone
to challenge Queen.
“I don’t think we had much for the #03 - I don’t think anyone did,” said Hall. “This is a good day,
but it is hard not to burn the tires up getting to second.”
Other incredible racing action happened at DR with the local Bandos, Legends, UCARs, and
8-Cyl Any Car also taking to the track. Tuggie Case led every lap from the pole for the Bandos:
his third win in a row. Keelan Harvick got his first win on the DR oval after executing a last lap
bump-and-run on Jacob Staten in the Legends race.
Tanner Griffith had some redemption of his own by holding off Michael Frayser in the UCARS. A race ago he made a mistake navigating lapped traffic, and he was able to put that aside to take home the first place trophy. Richard Storm spun out in the beginning of the 8 cyl ANYCAR race before navigating back through the field and battling Brian Maxey for a hard fought trip back to the Bugsys Repair Victory Lane.
Next Saturday Dominion Raceway will feature the VA Racers, Late Models, Dominion Stocks, Mini Stocks, and the Southern Ground Pounders. https://drevents.ticketstobuy.com/event/207
