Despite his involvement in two separate incidents during the night, Josh Berry executed one of the best performances of his career on Friday night at Ace Speedway, winning The Race At Ace 125 for the CARS Late Model Stock Tour.
It marked Berry’s 15th career victory in the series.
In qualifying, Ryan Millington rocketed to the fast time award. The youngster led the opening handful of circuits, but was challenged early on restarts.
Three laps into the race, caution flew for Trevor Ward’s smoking car, but at the exact moment the caution was called, Justin Carroll and Layne Riggs made contact, leading to a five-car pileup involving Berry, Tommy Lemons, Taylor Gray, Sammy Smith and Jason York. Although damaged, all drivers except York were able to eventually continue. Carroll brought out the next caution six laps later when a loose wheel eventually separated itself from the car, causing him to spin in turn two.
Bobby McCarty took the lead from Ryan Millington on lap nine and appeared to be in the same form he was one year prior at Ace where he led nearly every lap en route to victory.
On a lap 30 restart, Zack St. Onge apparently missed a shift, a mistake which led the field to fan out, leading to a multi-car incident where Brandon Pierce impacted the outside wall. Leland Honeyman, Jr., was also involved, ramping his machine over the entire right rear quarterpanel of Berry before also making contact with the concrete which ultimately ended his night.
A slew of additonal minor cautions occurred through the middle stages of the race (laps 38, 55, 57, and 89) but Bobby McCarty continued to set the pace over his closest pursuer, Deac McCaskill. Despite his issues early, Berry worked his way up to third and passed McCaskill on lap 76 before chasing down leader McCarty under green.
The caution for Gray and Mini Tyrrell’s encounter on lap 89 set up a pivotal restart for McCarty and Berry within sight of the finish. As the field raced into turn three, Berry eased into McCarty’s rear bumper, moved him up the racetrack and stole the preferred line as the field raced into turn one. Following additional contact, Berry emerged as the leader and quickly opened up a sizeable advantage of Deac McCaskill, who also bypassed McCarty during the same sequence.
Even a late-race caution for a single-car spin on lap 103 could not slow down Berry. He extended his lead to 2.421 seconds in the final 22 laps and handily beat Millington, McCaskill, McCarty and his JR Motorsports teammate Adam Lemke to the stripe.
“This has been a place we’ve struggled a little bit, but I don’t know, I guess we just figured it out tonight,” Berry said. “There were a couple little things we were able to work on and make our car better. I think, for me, it had such a feel like Martinsville (last year) where I could get it turned and point it straight to come right off the bottom. It was just a matter of time until we kept picking them off and picking them off.
“I wanna thank the good Lord above that we didn’t get caught up in a lot of trouble when we were back there in the back. We were able to sneak through it, there, and miss the big one on the front stretch because it was a bad situation and I didn’t know which way to go.”
The win, coupled with misfortune of his closest two point pursuers Taylor Gray and Brandon Pierce, extended Berry’s point lead entering race five of the tour at Motor Mile Speedway on May 18.
For more information on the CARS Tour, visit CARSRacingTour.com.
CARS Late Model Stock Tour
Ace Speedway – Altamahaw, NC
The Race At Ace 125 – May 3, 2019
1. 88 Josh Berry
2. 15 Ryan Millington
3. 08 Deac McCaskill
4. 22 Bobby McCarty
5. 98 Adam Lemke
6. 25 Zack St. Onge
7. 07 Bradley McCaskill
8. 81 Mini Tyrrell
9. 12 Sammy Smith
10. 17P Stacy Puryear
11. 1 Craig Moore
12. 4 Jonathan Findley
13. 01 Camden Gullie
14. 63 Tyler Matthews
15. 74 Ronald Hill
16. 2 Brandon Pierce
17. 19C Jessica Cann
18. 77 Trevor Ward
19. 17 Taylor Gray
20. 99 Layne Riggs
21. 19 Cameron Bowen
22. 27 Tommy Lemons, Jr.
23. 57 Justin Carroll
24. 4H Leland Honeyman, Jr.
25. 18 Jason York
