When the Solid Rock Carriers CARS Tour was established in 2015, Tristan McKee was only four years old.
McKee ended up making CARS Tour history over eight years later in Saturday night’s 100-lap Pro Late Model feature at Dillon Motor Speedway. By passing Ashton Higgins with 17 laps remaining, McKee became the CARS Tour’s youngest winner at just the age of 12.
With the series electing to lower age requirements for the PLM Tour this season, McKee elected to fully commit to the series after previously competing in a handful of Limited Late Model events in 2022.
McKee struggled to find consistency in his first three races with only a best finish of 10th at Hickory Motor Speedway. North Wilkesboro Speedway proved to be a turning point of McKee, as he registered a fourth place run in a 40-car field before backing that performance up with a seventh at Tri-County Motor Speedway.
For Saturday’s race at Dillon, McKee initially dropped from his third place starting position to conserve his equipment for the end of the race. He gradually climbed back towards the front of the field before ultimately making the race-winning pass on Higgins, who was also searching for his first PLM Tour win.
The triumph made McKee the fifth winner in six PLM Tour races this year, joining Mike Hopkins, Connor Zilisch, Augie Grill and Carson Kvapil. McKee will also close the gap on Katie Hettinger, who left Dillon with the points lead intact following a runner-up finish.
The CARS PLM Tour will get just over a week off before heading to Caraway Speedway for a mid-week event on June 28. They’ll share that event with the CARS LMSC Tour, which returns to action next Saturday evening at Dominion Raceway, which will be streamed on FloRacing.
For more information on the CARS Late Model Stock Tour and the CARS Pro Late Model Tour, visit www.carsracingtour.com. Be sure to stay active and social with the tour by liking “CARS Tour” on Facebook, following @CARSTour on Twitter and scrolling through photos on Instagram cars_tour.
Additional series information can be obtained by calling the CARS Tour series office, located in Mooresville, NC, at 704.662.9212.
-CARS Tour Release
PLM Results:
- 7 Tristan McKee
- 81 Katie Hettinger
- 88 T.J. DeCaire
- 28 Gio Ruggiero
- 9 Ashton Higgins
- 13 Austin MacDonald
- 03 Kyle Campbell
- 6 George Phillips
- 77 Logan Jones
- 07 Clint King
- 43H Joshua Horniman
- 96 Caden Kvapil -4
- 15 Brett Suggs -8
- 8 Rusty Skewes – DNS