Todd Gilliland had no way of knowing at the time, but his victory on March 28, 2015 would kickstart one of the most successful short track divisions in the country today.

That night was the inaugural race for the zMAX CARS Tour. Built from the remnants of the USAR Pro Cup Series, more than 65 Late Model Stock Car and Super Late Model teams converged on Southern National Motorsports Park for two separate 150-lap CARS Tour features.

Gilliland is one of several competitors from the CARS Tour’s debut weekend who have advanced into NASCAR’s top ranks. A lot has changed for Gilliland in the nine years since his momentous win, but he still vividly remembers how vibrant and energetic the atmosphere was leading up to the green flag.

“It was only my second full-time year in Late Models, but there was a lot of excitement around the new CARS Tour,” Gilliland said. “Now it’s funny to see how much its grown with the new ownership and everything else that’s happened. There were so many good guys [at the first race], so winning was such a huge confidence booster and helped me get into the groove of things.”

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Prior to the inception of the CARS Tour, opportunities were limited for Gilliland to showcase his talent in a Late Model Stock Car.

Gilliland had heard stories about previous touring divisions such as the NASCAR Southeast Series and the UARA-STARS Late Model Series that allowed Late Model Stock Car competitors to battle each on a semi-regular basis. With both tours dissolved by the mid-2010s, drivers like Gilliland were primarily confined to weekly events in the Southeast.

When the CARS Tour was initially announced, Gilliland immediately jumped at the chance to prove himself against many of the best in the Late Model Stock Car discipline. The first entry list for Southern National featured a copious number of competitive drivers, including four-time Southern National Motorsports Park track champion Deac McCaskill.

After starting third in the 30-car field, Gilliland stayed within reach of the lead as McCaskill proceeded to put together one of his trademark Southern National runs. A late-race caution gave Gilliland the opening he needed to move McCaskill up the track in Turn 4 and make the race-winning pass with three laps remaining.

The gravity of what Gilliland managed to do at McCaskill’s home track did not hit him until sometime after the Victory Lane celebrations concluded.

“It was a crazy one,” Gilliland said. “I honestly didn’t think too much about who I was racing against, but afterwards, people were telling me about all the races [McCaskill] had won there. You learn as you go, but you always want to beat the best when you’re coming up. [Beating McCaskill] made that win so much cooler.”

Gilliland’s triumph set the tone for both CARS Tour divisions, which have sense become a proving ground for young competitors to race against seasoned veterans.

In the Super Late Model Tour alone, which existed from 2015-2021, drivers like 2024 Daytona 500 champion William Byron, Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace, Harrison Burton and Zane Smith earned at least one victory before progressing into the NASCAR Cup Series.

The same trend has been prevalent in the Late Model Stock Car division. Among the notable winners are Sam Mayer and Corey Heim, 2023 Championship 4 contenders in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, respectively, as well as Anthony Alfredo, Taylor Gray and Layne Riggs.

Following in his father Scott’s Late Model Stock Car footsteps, Riggs burst onto the scene by obtaining his first CARS Late Model Stock Tour victory at Dominion Raceway in 2017 with his family-owned car. He earned five additional victories in the next five years, with Riggs using that knowledge to claim the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series title in 2022.

Riggs does not think he would have earned his national title or his ride with Front Row Motorsports in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series without developing his skills in the CARS Tour against so many established names.

“The CARS Tour is where I learned to race,” Riggs said. “I raced against some of the best of the best. I duked it out with Deac McCaskill in my first CARS Tour race and we battled for the win in my [most recent] CARS Tour race. Racing against such good competition all those years is what taught me to be such a good driver.”

Of the people Riggs had to constantly battle on CARS Tour race weekends, none were tougher than Josh Berry.

From the moment Berry entered his first CARS Tour event in 2015, he set a high standard for the rest of his competitors to follow. After winning in three of his four appearances during the inaugural year, Berry would go on to claim the series championship in 2017 while also topping the all-time wins list in the Late Model Stock Car division with 22 victories.

The first checkered flag at Pulaski County Motorsports Park was a pivotal one for Berry, as it laid the foundation for him to eventually work his way into the Cup Series as a full-time driver for Stewart-Haas Racing.

“Winning the first one out was pretty cool because [Pulaski County Motorsports Park] is where I started,” Berry said. “I never had a huge amount of success there, so winning that race helped build some confidence and momentum. As the years followed, we kept getting better at those longer races and it made everything a lot of fun.”

Berry added the CARS Tour has always separated itself from other similar short track divisions since its inception, particularly when it came to reaching a wider motorsports audience.

The sanctioning body has always placed heavy emphasis on broadcasting races live, a philosophy that has carried over into their current partnership with FloRacing. This in turn created a larger platform that showcased how competitive the CARS Tour was with its even mix of young and experienced competitors.

With several prominent figures across motorsports tuning in, drivers like Berry gained more exposure as the CARS Tour continued to flourish. Now the day-to-day operations of the series are overseen by an ownership group that consists of Berry’s old boss Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his current boss Kevin Harvick, as well as Justin Marks and Jeff Burton.

Berry is looking forward to watching Sunday’s season-opener at Southern National and seeing many of his old competitors go up against the next generation of young prospects. Although his time with the series is over, Berry said he will always appreciate everything the CARS Tour did to help him and many others find their way to the top levels of NASCAR.

“The CARS Tour has been a great home for me over the years,” Berry said. “I’m really thankful for [general manager] Jack [McNelly] and everybody there that gave us the platform to go race. As a race car driver, the CARS Tour helped legitimize what we were doing by putting us in front of more eyes.

“It’s something I’ll look back on and enjoy for my whole life.”

Instead of being a spectator Sunday, Riggs will pursue another CARS Tour victory behind the wheel of Harvick’s Late Model Stock Car, a race that he believes will be one of the toughest to win based on the number of competitive cars entered.

The influx of drivers and resources into the CARS Tour is something Riggs considers to be a natural evolution of the series because of its growing popularity. To sustain that growth, Riggs hopes the ownership group keeps finding methods to reach more people from a marketing and broadcasting standpoint.

“One thing I’d like to see is for [the CARS Tour] to be nationally televised,” Riggs said. “They have the capacity to do it and the viewership would be there. It would be awesome for the average person who doesn’t know how to work a computer to see the racing that goes on. Being on a cable network would be big for the series.”

No matter what direction the owners takes the CARS Tour, Riggs plans to keep racing in the series for as long as his NASCAR schedule will allow, adding that he believes its best days have yet to come.

For Gilliland, he would love to have an opportunity to revisit his Late Model Stock Car roots and chase another CARS Tour win one day. He owes a lot of his success to the atmosphere cultivated by the CARS Tour and is thrilled to see that same mindset carry on with the current group of drivers.

“The CARS Tour has helped in so many ways,” Gilliland said. “It’s nice to have one touring series where you can race against Dale Jr.’s team and a lot of great short track racers who have been doing this for a long time. A lot of younger guys come through the CARS Tour now, but the veterans can point you in the right direction along the way.

“Everything there really sets you up to grow for the future.”

Nearly nine years and 110 races after Gilliland took that first checkered flag at Southern National, the CARS Tour has maintained a proud tradition of success that continues to positively shape the present and future of NASCAR.