MOORESVILLE, N.C. (July 3, 2025) – In the ninth round of the zMAX CARS Tour Late Model Stock Car championship, Connor Hall and the No. 88 Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Chevrolet team fought track position and a slippery Caraway Speedway surface on the way to a 12th-place finish in the Firecracker 265.
The Virginia native kept his lead in the LMSC point standings, finishing one spot ahead of title rival Landen Lewis, and now sits six points ahead of Lewis in the overall standings heading into an extended break in the schedule.
Hall, a week after capturing the opening round of the Virginia Triple Crown at South Boston Speedway in Virginia, ran into trouble in qualifying when his Chevrolet slid in residual water from a weeper in Turn 2 on his fast lap and was forced to start 20th on Caraway’s tight three-eighths-mile layout.
In the first 50 laps, Hall hunted the best groove for his Chevrolet, riding in 16th as he sorted out the handling and maintained position. At the competition caution, Hall reported that the handling was coming to him, but the dense traffic was balking his move to the front.
Over the next 50 laps, Hall worked on finding a line he could make up time in and sat 14th when the yellow flag waved for the second competition caution.
The final 25-lap shootout saw Hall move forward a couple of positions and gain further ground with 19 laps remaining when the lead trio of Lewis, polesitter Mini Tyrrell and Landon Huffman tangled to bring out the caution flag.
With 10 laps remaining, Hall sat 13th and was battling to make it to the top 10 but ended up finishing 12th.
Jared Fryar won the race ahead of Kaden Honeycutt, Tristan McKee, Ronnie Bassett Jr. and Doug Barnes.
Next action for Hall, team manager and crew chief Bryan Shaffer and the Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Late Model team will be July 19 at Langley Speedway in Virginia for the second round of the Virginia Triple Crown. Hall won the opener at South Boston on June 28.
Connor Hall, driver, No. 88 Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Chevrolet:
“We felt so good about it in practice, but come qualifying and race time, the car was a completely different animal. I don’t really have answers on that right now, but Bryan and I are chatting about it. It’s so hard when you come off Saturday (at South Boston) feeling like you’re king of the world and then come to Caraway on Tuesday and have a really good test, you’re really fast and then on Wednesday night you don’t put a good race together. It didn’t go our way tonight. I really couldn’t find a line I could run consistently all night. We need some consistency, and the chemistry between Bryan and me is very good. This car was completely different. We’ll sort it out and get back to it at Langley in a couple weeks.”
