Fresh off a thrilling triumph two weeks ago at the Nashville (Tenn.) Fairgrounds Speedway, Caden Kvapil overcame a day-long delay to earn a third-place finish in the zMAX CARS Tour’s 125-lap main at North Carolina’s Caraway Speedway on Sunday.
With the finish, the second-generation star retains the points lead in the LMSC division.
After posting the 11th-fastest qualifying time, the rains washed out Saturday’s planned schedule and shifted it to Sunday. The rain washed the accumulated rubber off the racy Caraway oval and left Kvapil with a setup not tuned to the Sunday conditions.
On the initial start, the second-generation star began to pick his way forward despite a setup tuned to nighttime conditions, using restarts to gain positions. By lap 70, the young driver was running third even though his car was loose on exit and finished the race there.
“The weather and track conditions were a lot different than we expected, racing at night,” Kvapil said. “The handling was off a bit all day on Sunday, but we worked slowly forward and picked up a bunch of spots on restarts by taking the outside and getting down from the top line.
“My dad (crew chief Travis Kvapil) and the rest of the JR Motorsports team worked really hard all weekend trying to get the balance where it needed to be and unfortunately, we just missed it a little bit. It was still a successful weekend in our No. 88 Jerky Boys/CorvetteParts.net/LKN Mechanical/Roto-Rooter Chevrolet even though we came up a little short of another win. Big thanks to Dale, Kelley, LW and Bryan for making this possible every week.”
Landen Lewis won the race over Connor Jones and Kvapil, with Kaden Honeycutt and Dylan Fetcho the rest of the top five.
The zMAX CARS Tour will next compete on May 9 at Ace Speedway (Altamahaw, N.C.).