ROUGEMONT, N.C. - Cole Rouse survived a wild and hectic Super Late Model feature to score his first CARS Racing Tour event Saturday night at Orange County Speedway in Rougemont, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, local driver Layne Riggs dominated the Late Model Stock feature for his second career CARS victory.
In the Super Late Model Feature, Matt Craig jumped out to the early lead as a group of a half dozen cars separated themselves from the field in the early laps.
A handful of mid-race incidents thinned the field, beginning with a four-car melee in turn one on lap 46. Brandon Setzer and Lucas Jones came together, sweeping up Tate Fogleman and Dan Speeney into the accident.
A little over fifty laps later, Trevor Noles and Casey Roderick came together in turn four, cutting the left rear tire of Noles car and causing him to spin into the wall in turn one. A lap later on the restart, Roderick and David Calabrese found one another on-track. The ensuing aftermath claimed Bradley McCaskill after he flew airborne over Calabrese’s car, plus Fogleman and Jody Measmer, while Spencer Wauters and Gracie Trotter spun to avoid the carnage.
Rouse and Craig emerged as the two contenders once the proverbial dust settled, locking horns on each lap. With 33 laps to go, Rouse moved to the inside of Craig in turn three and performed a textbook slide job to claim the lead.
In the final five laps, with over a two-second lead, Rouse’s car began to show smoke and Casey Roderick began to close in. Rouse was able to hold on to a narrow margin of victory to claim his first CARS Super Late Model Tour win and the fourth for Kyle Busch Motorsports at Orange County.
“We had enough until at the end when our tires got so over-inflated that it was so hard to make it through the entire corner without slipping,” Rouse said. “I was so loose those last five laps or so and losing a lot of speed. I can’t thank all these guys enough, Toyota and KBM did a great job. We deserved a few wins this year and finally got one. It’s good to finally get a win since we deserved a lot and should’ve won three this year and a lot last year. So, yeah, this is for all these guys here.”
In the Late Model Stock feature, Josh Berry led the field ot green white Layne Riggs alongside. Berry won the drag race into turn one, but by the time the first lap was completed, Riggs had wrestled the lead away from Berry and began to control the event.
Grayson Massey exploded an engine on lap 38, bringing out the first caution and subsequent red flag of the race. He escaped uninjured. Twenty laps later, Tommy Lemons, Jr., slowed with a flat right front tire, bringing out the second yellow flag of the event.
The field took the green flag for the final time with 91 laps remaining and Riggs once again was forced to duel with Josh Berry for the race lead. After a handful of side-by-side laps, Riggs cleared Berry and slowly began to pull away. Deac McCaskill passed Berry for second 19 laps later and made his attempt to reel in Riggs as the laps wound down.
Riggs caught traffic in the final ten laps, allowing McCaskill to pull within three quarters of a second, but used veteran-like maneuvers to slice through the slower cars, causing McCaskill’s hopes of victory to evaporate as he also was forced to navigate the cars racing for position. Riggs cruised to his second career victory and first at his home track by 1.456 seconds and extended his point lead over Anthony Alfredo who finished fifth.
“Oh, man, it’s just amazing to win at our home track,” Riggs said, visibly holding back tears. “Thanks to everyone and all the sponsors who’ve helped us. Hopefully, we can get some more wins like this. I’m just ready to go to the next track, Tri-County. I felt like we were pretty good there last year, we sat on the outside pole and had some bad luck. I feel like Tri-County is probably most like this track than anywhere else, then we come back to Orange County, so it’s great for us and hopefully we can get some more finishes.”
The CARS Racings Tour next travels to Tri-County Motor Speedway in Hudson, North Carolina on July 8 for the Do The Dew 200.
For more information, visit CARSRacingTour.com.
CARS Super Late Model Tour
Orange County Speedway – Rougemont, North Carolina
Thrifty Tire Center/Puryear Tank Lines 300 – June 25, 2017
Super Late Models
1. 51 Cole Rouse
2. 18 Casey Roderick
3. 54 Matt Craig
4. 8 Tate Fogleman
5. 92 Jason Stanley
6. 5 Spencer Wauters
7. 34 Nolan Pope
8. 55 Gracie Trotter
9. 37 Dan Speeney
10. 118 Bradley McCaskill
11. 2 Trevor Noles
12. 43 David Calabrese
13. 98 Jody Measmer
14. 49 Jeff Batten
15. 6 Brandon Setzer
16. 16 Lucas Jones
Late Model Stocks
1. 99 Layne Riggs
2. 08 Deac McCaskill
3. 88b Josh Berry
4. 1 Craig Moore
5. 8 Anthony Alfredo
6. 81 Jared Fryar
7. 74 Ronald Hill
8. 28 Chris Hudspeth
9. 2 Myatt Snider
10. 98 Stefan Parsons
11. 44 Justin Johnson
12. 18 Evan Swilling
13. 06 Terry Dease
14. 32 Brandon Grosso
15. 88 Chris Davis
16. 42 Tommy Lemons
17. 39 Grayson Massey
