NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. (Oct. 18, 2025) — Landen Lewis and Kevin Harvick Inc. capped off a dominant season, capturing the 2025 zMax CARS Tour Late Model Stock Car championship.
Landen Lewis entered the 2025 season with just a handful of starts and a single victory to his name after competing part-time on the tour in 2024, making the focus not just on chasing a title but learning how to put a full season of racing together against some of the toughest short track competition in the country. Lewis and KHI had a slow start to 2025, but back to back victories at Ace Speedway and North Wilkesboro in the spring awoke the sleeping giant.
The learning curve for Lewis was still prevalent at the mid-point of the season, putting the title in question. With the likes of Kevin Harvick and Ron Hornaday, Jr. in his corner, Lewis recalibrated his mindset, showing a lot of poise in the latter part of the season and scoring two more victories at Anderson and Florence. With those wins, Lewis and KHI took control of the championship and never looked back.
“We’ve worked so hard as a group to get to where we are in two years,” said Lewis. “It’s one thing to talk about it, but it’s another thing to do it. Definitely, at the beginning of the year, I thought we had a decent year going and then started winning races. Then, started getting too aggressive, making moves that weren't ready to be made. Changed that attitude going into Anderson, and that set our year up for where we’re at now.”
Kevin Harvick Inc., as a race team, was dormant for over a decade. The team returned to full-time competition in 2024 with Toyota development driver Brent Crews and had some success.
The Harvicks put their own full support behind Lewis in 2025, as Lewis has done for them every day working in the shop, helping to build the program that would win them a championship.
“That's the thing people don’t realize about Landen, he spends every day working on the car,” said Kevin Harvick. “When he goes home at night, he studies and learns how to drive. During the day, he’s a mechanic, a body hanger, and everything else in between, so that's why all these people help him, because he’s just a good human. That's what we preach to both the kids, Landen and Keelan, it's more important to be a good human than to go fast.”
Going into Saturday Night at North Wilkesboro, the championship deficit was 13 points for Connor Hall. Hall's fourth-place finish to Lewis’ seventh wasn't enough to overcome the gap, and for the third season in a row, Connor Hall finished the season as the championship runner-up
“Honestly, I’m not even as concerned with that,” said Hall. “Thirteen-point gap, one race, he and I have been within ten points half the year. I got to live my dream, I’ve been chasing that since I was eight years old, getting to race for a living. I was genuinely stuck back in Virginia, didn’t know how to make this move happen, but I got the call from Dale, Kelley, and LW that obviously brought that whole deal into fruition, just super thankful.”
As for the race Saturday, it was a mano a mano duel between Landon S. Huffman and Caden Kavpil, both vying for their first zMax CARS Tour Late Model Stock victory. Down the back stretch on the final lap, Kvapil and Huffman were side by side. Kavpil, on the inside, sailed it into the final turn using all the available racetrack to clear Huffman coming to the flag, scoring his first victory and joining older brother Carson as a winner at North Wilkesboro for JR Motorsports.
“It’s been a long time coming for sure,” said Kvapil. “To be able to get my first win in the Late Model Stock division here at Wilkesboro, it's really cool. It’s one of the most historic tracks on the schedule, obviously, to be able to come back after it got revived three years ago when my brother won here and win in the exact same car, that’s really awesome.”
As for the Pro Late Models, Keelan Harvick and Luke Baldwin had an epic battle, with Harvick getting the best of No. 51 and scoring his fourth victory of 2025.
"It's really cool, to be able to add my name to the win list [at North Wilkesboro," said Keelan Harvick in victory lane on FloRacing. "It's really awesome. A lot ofpeople have won here. I just can't thank the Rackley W.A.R. guys enough, HendrickCars.com, Realtree, Hunt Brothers, Panini, iRacing, everybody. It wouldn't be possible without them."
Despite the loss in the battle on Saturday, Luke Baldwin was able to win the war in the Pro Late Model division's owners' championship for Rick Ware Racing.
We're celebrating with Rick Ware Racing and a bad fast 51 Ford Mustang all year, man," said Baldwin. "It just shows what Troy Smith can do. He's an animal. This thing was on a rail all weekend. The track just tightened up on us. I think the 62 was too free to start, and it came into play for him. It wasn't worth trying anything at the end. I don't know how to do it, I would probably spin him out. He doesn't deserve to be spun out, and I probably would have been put to the rear.
"That was a fun race. That Keelan kid's got a bright future, I think. I got outdriven by a 13-year-old."
“It’s just awesome, championships are tough,” said Ware. “It means a lot because this is a fantastic series that has a lot of street cred to it. You come here, you’re gonna get your butt handed to you until you can get it figured out, and we did for the first third of the year. We’re just thankful that we were able to string together consistency and win by a few points.”
Ben Maier was the epitome of consistency, not winning a race in 2025 but leading the series in top fives and top tens. He was able to secure the 2025 zMax CARS Tour Pro Late Model division championship.
“We’ve been super fast all year,” said Maier “we’ve had a lot of wins taken from us that we should've won, but we had some dominant cars. It’s been amazing all year, the guys have put in so much work and I'm very thankful for that.”
-Story by: Buddy Pulley
-Photo credit: Joshua White/CARS Tour
zMAX CARS Tour Championship Weekend Results
LMSC Results:
- 8 Caden Kvapil
- 28 Landon S. Huffman
- 71 Parker Eatmon
- 88 Connor Hall
- 6B Brandon Lopez
- 12 Trevor Ward
- 29 Landen Lewis
- 4 Kade Brown
- 03 Lanie Buice
- 22 Carson Loftin
- 44 Conner Jones
- 88B Doug Barnes Jr.
- 50 Jamey Caudill
- 7 Tyler Reif
- 81 Mini Tyrrell
- 18 Alex Meggs
- 1 Andrew Grady
- 00 Chase Burrow
- 2 Brandon Pierce
- 57 Landon Huffman
- 9 Darrick Coomer -1
- 4S Donovan Strauss -2
- 01 Thomas Beane -3
- 7H Blayne Harrison – OUT
- 16 Chad McCumbee – OUT
- 4W Dylon Wilson – OUT
- 8F Tate Fogleman – OUT
- 04 Ronnie Bassett Jr. – OUT
PLM Results:
- 62 Keelan Harvick
- 51 Luke Baldwin
- 44 Conner Jones
- 6 Ben Maier
- 6L Brandon Lopez
- 61 Evan McKnight
- 68 Aidan Potter
- 88 T.J. DeCaire
- 17J Jake Johnson
- 7 Treyten Lapcevich
- 24 Jade Avedisian
- 25 Isaac Kitzmiller
- 97 Dylan Garner -1
- 22 Dusty Garus -1
- 8C Terri Crider -1
- 47 Tyler Reif – OUT
- 74 Rodney Dowless – OUT
- 4 Trey Burke – OUT
- 9 Ashton Higgins – OUT
- 82 Taylor Hull – OUT
- 97K Jason Kitzmiller – OUT
- 17M Taylor Mayhew – OUT
- 29 Kevin Harvick – OUT
