What a massive win for Kaden Honeycutt on Friday night in the CARS Tour race at Ace Speedway.
Just two weeks after his grandfather’s death, Honeycutt ended a long winless streak for both himself and Nelson Motorsports, and did so in dominant fashion, leading nearly every lap and holding the spot through gridlocked traffic as well.
There were tears, laughter and everything familiar about his racing experience – blood and otherwise – as the whole group joined in a prayer before a second splash of champagne.
Again, just a special win.
“After my grandfather passed away a few weeks ago, it’s so special,” Honeycutt said. “Especially my family and this team, they’ve just been working all season and we haven’t had the luck we needed to finish those races.
“Finally things went our way, it stayed green and I kept the gap to Chad (McCumbie) and kept my brakes in case something happened.”
What Honeycutt didn’t even realize was that McCumbee was actually out of the race with brake line damage and had a huge lead over Josh Berry – replacing the suspended Carson Kvapil in the JR Motorsports No. 8.
Honeycutt and McCumbee had just completed an exciting duel in lap traffic.
“It was very intense,” Honeycutt said. “We had one spin right in front of us and that was kind of scary. When I was shooting between (Brandon Pierce) and (Dylan Ward), racing hard, I was lucky that (Pierce) gave me a spot in the middle. (McCumbie) got pinched by that it helped.”