What Is the CARS Tour?
The zMAX CARS Tour Presented by SoundGear is the premier regional stock car racing series in the eastern United States — the most direct development pipeline between weekly short-track racing and NASCAR's national series. The CARS Tour is the touring sanction for Southeast Late Model Stock racing, and it has become the proving ground where the next generation of NASCAR talent gets found.
In January 2023, the series was acquired by a group 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 brought national visibility, bigger purses, and a clear mission — to make the CARS Tour the best-produced regional touring series in the country.
Two Divisions
Late Model Stock Car (LMSC) — the headline division, where the championship drama and the star power live. Purpose-built stock cars on short tracks across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic.
Pro Late Model (PLM) — a different rules package with its own dedicated field, running on the same race cards as the LMSC division at most events. This is where teenagers race veterans on equal machinery.
2026 Schedule
The 2026 season runs 13 races, opening at Southern National in February and ending at South Boston in October:
| # | Date | Track | Location | Divisions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Feb 28 | Southern National Motorsports Park | Kenly, NC | LMSC / PLM |
| 2 | Mar 28 | Wake County Speedway | Raleigh, NC | LMSC |
| 3 | Apr 11 | Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway | Nashville, TN | LMSC / PLM |
| 4 | Apr 25 | Caraway Speedway | Asheboro, NC | LMSC / PLM |
| 5 | May 9 | Ace Speedway | Altamahaw, NC | LMSC / PLM |
| 6 | May 30 | Langley Speedway | Hampton, VA | LMSC |
| 7 | Jun 13 | Dominion Raceway | Thornburg, VA | LMSC |
| 8 | Jul 17 | North Wilkesboro Speedway | North Wilkesboro, NC | LMSC / PLM |
| 9 | Aug 22 | Anderson Motor Speedway | Williamston, SC | LMSC / PLM |
| 10 | Sep 4 | Florence Motor Speedway | Timmonsville, SC | LMSC / PLM |
| 11 | Sep 12 | Tri-County Speedway | Hudson, NC | LMSC / PLM |
| 12 | Oct 3 | Newport Speedway | Newport, TN | LMSC / PLM |
| 13 | Oct 17 | South Boston Speedway | South Boston, VA | LMSC / PLM |
Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway and Newport Speedway are both new to the Tour in 2026. North Wilkesboro — revived in 2022 after twenty-six years dormant — runs one date in July, alongside the Cup Series weekend.
Where the Season Stands
Standings as of the post-Ace points release (after Race 5 — the last official update before Langley): Caden Kvapil leads the LMSC championship at 204 points with two wins, 22 clear of Treyten Lapcevich (182). Conner Jones is third at 177, Chase Burrow fourth at 163, and defending champion Landen Lewis fifth at 160. In Pro Late Model, Mason Walters leads at 153, with Kaden Honeycutt second at 135 after sweeping Ace. Kvapil's third-place run at Langley (below) widened his lead.
The season so far:
- Race 1 — Southern National (Feb 28): Caden Kvapil charged from 29th to win the opener, his third straight JR Motorsports victory.
- Race 2 — Wake County (Mar 28): Conner Jones passed Landen Lewis on the final restart to win.
- Race 3 — Nashville Fairgrounds (Apr 11): Kvapil won the Tour's first-ever Nashville race; Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran twelfth in a 31-car field.
- Race 4 — Caraway (Apr 25): Landen Lewis got dropped to the rear on a choose-cone violation, then drove all the way back to win — his first of 2026. Kaden Honeycutt won the PLM feature.
- Race 5 — Ace (May 9–10): Honeycutt swept both features — the first weekend sweep in CARS Tour history.
- Race 6 — Langley (May 30): Connor Hall went home to Hampton and won the Visit Hampton Virginia 125 on a one-off entry; teammate and defending champion Landen Lewis ran second and declined to move him on the late restarts. Kvapil came from 15th to third and extended his points lead. (Read our coverage.)
Up next: Dominion Raceway (Thornburg, VA), June 13 — Race 7.
Drivers to Watch
Caden Kvapil — the JR Motorsports No. 88, with father Travis Kvapil as crew chief and two-time champion Carson Kvapil as his older brother. Leads the 2026 standings on a run of charge-from-the-back top-threes.
Connor Hall — the 2025 series runner-up and back-to-back NASCAR Weekly Series national champion, now building Niece Motorsports' Late Model program and running select NASCAR Truck Series starts. Still wins the moment he shows up. (We covered his Rockingham run, too.)
Landen Lewis — the defending LMSC champion, splitting 2026 between Niece's Truck program and select Late Model starts.
Conner Jones — a 2026 race winner already, with five career CARS Tour LMSC victories.
Lee Pulliam — one of the great short-track drivers of his generation; four NASCAR Weekly national titles. Returned from a 2,387-day winless stretch to win at South Boston in March 2026.
The NASCAR Pipeline
The CARS Tour has become the most direct path from short-track racing to NASCAR. Its highest-profile recent graduate is Connor Zilisch, who ran the Carolinas short tracks before earning a full-time Trackhouse Racing Cup Series seat for 2026 at nineteen. Carson Kvapil won back-to-back CARS Tour titles in 2022–23 before moving up the NASCAR ladder. The ownership group's connections — Earnhardt Jr., Harvick, Burton, and Marks — put CARS Tour drivers directly in front of Cup Series team owners and talent evaluators.
How to Watch
Every CARS Tour event streams live and exclusively on FloRacing (floracing.com). Schedules, entry lists, and full results are published at the series' official site, carsracingtour.com.
The Charlotte Mercury covers the CARS Tour as part of its national motorsports coverage.