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You are currently viewing Connor Hall and Nelson 22 make their mark with victory at South Boston 200 – Short Track Scene

Connor Hall and Nelson 22 make their mark with victory at South Boston 200 – Short Track Scene

Connor Hall and Nelson Motorsports made some noise on Saturday night with their win at the South Boston 200.

First, this has always been a challenge for Connor Hall over the years, every trip to South Boston Speedway in the NASCAR Weekly Series and also the CARS Tour. It just hasn’t suited his driving style.

“Those really high-grip race tracks where we’re all dealing with loose tires, those scenarios are like my kryptonite,” Hall said in Victory Lane. “I don’t want to disparage anything I’ve done since I got to Nelson (Motorsports), but when I was with Chad Bryant, he just slammed my head into the side of the trailer to make me realize what it takes to win those races.

“And even though I don’t drive for him anymore, he’s still one of my best friends and I really wish he was here because he made me the racer I am today.”

It certainly seemed to be his driving style on Saturday when he had to pass 30 cars, everyone else, after starting from the back and driving away in dominant fashion to take his first win at South Boston and his most important event. Hall only posted the 23rd fastest time in qualifying, but there was an explanation for that.

“I thought I just failed in qualifying because it didn’t feel like that in practice,” Hall said. “It was like I was completely out of it, but that wasn’t surprising because like I said, this place kills me.”

“I came in and there was 10 pounds on the right rear axle, a third of what it should be after a qualifying lap, and we kept pumping air into it and it kept losing air.

NASCAR officials therefore gave them two options: They could either keep their starting position in the midfield with a damaged right rear wheel or simply move to the back with a sticker.

Easy choice.

But you made another statement, and this one is perhaps a bit premature and primitive: you were certainly aware that Landon Huffman had somehow attacked you in a tweet after qualifying.

https://twitter.com/LandonHuffman/status/1807185437871812975

It’s no secret that Huffman still resents the circumstances that led to him being a legitimate contributor to Nelson Motorsports’ revival in 2023, but then losing his spot when Hall was ousted by Treyten Lapcevich at Bryant. But the timing just felt odd for the Nelson team, given that it’s pretty much July now and they were just going about their business in South Boston.

As Hall crossed the finish line and did a victory lap, he even referenced the tweet and said he might have to tweet one himself now, before learning that they had had their conversation on the track on Saturday.

Will Hall get a tweet?

“What are you talking about?” Hall said cheekily. “Did something happen?”

Hey.

“Listen, I don’t drive with my thumbs,” Hall said. “I drive with my hands and feet, so I let my driving speak for itself. I like having fans and people tweeting about me and supporting me. I could donate a million dollars to charity and everyone would still talk bad about me. I don’t know why. I feel like I drive hard but pretty well and pretty admirably — I do to you what you do to me, in that old-fashioned way.

“If I beat you up a little bit, you have every right to beat me up too. That’s racing. I’m not pointing fingers on Twitter. I’m out here dealing with it. I’m not saying anybody does or doesn’t do it. No dig. I’m not throwing a dig. I’m just doing Connor. Connor doing Connor.”

He wasn’t expecting a tweet, but his girlfriend probably had one ready.

Meanwhile, “Connor” caught Trevor Ward in the closing laps, defeating the reigning Valleystar Credit Union 300 winner in a tough series restart. Hall got out of the car and asked his team if he was too hard on Ward and was told he wasn’t. Ward agreed to take the podium.

“It’s a good, tough race for the South Boston 200,” Ward said. “I’ve been friends with Connor for a long time and I have a lot of respect for him because that’s the way you want to race. That being said, we don’t race as much as some of the guys here, so I’m just proud of our speed and hope we can carry that over to Langley and Martinsville.”

The remaining two races of the Virginia Triple Crown with which South Boston ushers in the summer.

Kaden Honeycutt finished third after leading nearly every lap in the first half. Ward passed him five laps into the second half and Honeycutt just had to hang on in the final laps.

“I had a really good turning point in the first 100 laps and didn’t make any major adjustments in the break, although we probably should have,” he said of a track that got tighter as the tire density increased.

Honeycutt was pushed to the front by six-time track champion Peyton Sellers on the final lap in the battle for a podium position, frustrating both the driver and his car builder Marcus Richmond, who took Sellers to task in the engineering department.

“That was foul, definitely foul,” Honeycutt said when asked about the race with Sellers. “It was for third place, and I understand we’re fighting for Triple Crown points, but that wasn’t necessary. I gave him plenty of room. He wanted it and unfortunately he didn’t get it.”

Sellers certainly made this argument.

“We were having a good day, not a great day, and he was backing up to me, and I came up to his door and made a move that any real American would make, I pushed him a foot up the race track, but I didn’t destroy him,” Sellers said. “I was racing for points, because we see every year at Martinsville that the Triple Crown championship comes down to one pass in one of those three races, but I didn’t destroy him.”

“I didn’t understand why Marcus came here and said everything he said. I told him to stick to selling racing cars. And we are friends and will remain so, but we didn’t see eye to eye on this point.”

South Boston 200
South Boston Racetrack
June 29, 2024

  1. Connor Hall
  2. Trevor Ward
  3. Kaden Honeycutt
  4. Peyton Sellers
  5. Kade Brown
  6. Carter Langley
  7. Kyle Dudley
  8. BrendenQueen
  9. Deac McCaskill
  10. Blake Stallings
  11. Tate Fogleman
  12. Stacy Puryear
  13. Raymond Pittman
  14. Brandon Pierce
  15. Matt Waltz
  16. Jessica Cann
  17. Timothy Peters
  18. Jason Myers
  19. Landon Pembleton
  20. Michael B.
  21. Mike Looney
  22. Sam Yarbrough
  23. Chase Burrow
  24. Brian Thomas
  25. Bonnie McCarty
  26. GR Waldrop
  27. Isabella Robusto
  28. Logan Clark
  29. Eric Winslow
  30. Jacob Borst
  31. Camden Gullies
  32. Andrew Grady

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