Honeycutt Wins Again In Wilkesboro Pro Late Model Rout

Kaden Honeycutt celebrates in victory lane at North Wilkesboro Speedway Thursday night. (Scotte Sprinkle photo)

NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. – Kaden Honeycutt won Thursday night’s CARS Pro Late Model Tour race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, earning back-to-back victories at the track in the series.

Honeycutt led every lap in the Reverend Sour Mash Whiskey 75. He won the season finale for the series last year at the speedway, also winning the driver’s championship that evening.

This time around, Honeycutt started on pole and had a comfortable lead for a majority of the race, but in the final few laps he was mired in heavy lap traffic.

Dawson Sutton closed in, but was not able to get close enough, and Honeycutt held on to claim the victory.

“[It’s] just awesome,” Honeycutt said in victory lane. “We had a really good car tonight. I was taking my time there the last couple laps with those lappers. I saw Dawson was running me down pretty quickly, so I decided to turn [the wick] back up and get past those lappers. It was pretty hectic those last couple laps … but I’m just i'm just happy for this team.

“I’m very lucky to be a part of it.”

When Honeycutt won the race and championship last year, his focus was fully on closing out his full-time season with a title. This time, he raced as a part-timer just looking to win, but he brought the same mentality that he had when he won the 2024 title.

“We came out here guns blazing last year determined to win, and there’s nothing really that’s different about this team [compared to last year],” he noted. “We go out there to win races. We don’t go to run around and take fifth as a good day. [When] we [finish] fifth, we're up all night trying to figure out what we need to do to be better.

“This team just wants to go kick butt and win, and that’s what I want to do too.”

The Willow Park, Texas native is pulling triple-duty this weekend, racing in the No. 5 Late Model Stock for Hettinger Racing in Friday night’s CARS Tour race and capping it all off in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race on Saturday in his usual No. 45 Niece Motorsports ride.

Honeycutt started from the pole, but a massive crash on the initial start caused a red flag. Isaac Kitzmiller missed a shift coming to the green, causing a stack up in the middle part of the field that collected Max Reaves, Jade Avedisian, Jason Kitzmiller and more.

On the complete restart, Honeycutt opened up a sizable gap early on. The next yellow fell on lap nine when Brandan Marhefka slowed on the backstretch. Undeterred, Honeycutt again pulled away from Sutton as a green-flag run broke out from there.

The field settled into a rhythm and completed 40 consecutive laps, bringing the competition caution out with 26 laps to go.

On the final restart, Sutton was able to hang with Honeycutt for a moment, but it did not take long for Honeycutt to scoot away to another large lead.

With five laps left, Honeycutt encountered heavy traffic and started to lose time. Sutton closed up to just a few car lengths, but did not have enough to get by Honeycutt and finished .368 seconds back.

Keelan Harvick came home in third, Spencer Davis finished in fourth, and NASCAR Cup Series regular Josh Berry completed the top five in a return to pro late model racing.

Sixth through 10th were Tristan McKee, Luke Baldwin, Conner Jones, Ben Maier, and Honeycutt’s teammate Brandon Lopez.

The finish:

Reverend Sour Mash Whiskey 75: 1. 47-Kaden Honeycutt; 2. 26-Dawson Sutton; 3. 62-Keelan Harvick; 4. 96-Spencer Davis; 5. 21-Josh Berry; 6. 7M-Tristan McKee; 7. 51-Luke Baldwin; 8. 44-Conner Jones; 9. 6-Ben Maier; 10. 6L-Brandon Lopez; 11. 20-Camden Murphy; 12. 25-Isaac Kitzmiller; 13. 97-Dylan Garner; 14. 7-Brody Monahan; 15. V5-Vito Cancilla; 16. 43-Joshua Horniman; 17. 24-Jade Avedisian; 18. 15-Rodney Dowless; 19. 13-Brandan Marhefka; 20. 54-T.J. DeCaire; 21. 8-Toro Rodriguez; 22. 97K-Jason Kitzmiller; 23. 66-Nick Neri; 24. 18-Max Reaves; 25. 17-Hudson Bulger; 26. 28-Kevin Cremonesi; 27. 45-Logan Jones; 28. 1-Cody Brinson.