CARS Tour puts on a better show than “horrible” ARCA

Earlier this year at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Josh Berry earned his first career Cup Series win, taking the iconic No. 21 Wood Brothers machine to Victory Lane. He also has five wins in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, but it was the CARS Late Model Tour where he truly made a name for himself.

Berry won the 2017 CARS Late Model Stock championship, collecting 22 wins in just 56 starts (most all-time). The CARS Tour got some primetime treatment on Friday night with FOX Sports 1 broadcasting the entire Window World 100 at North Wilkesboro live, which immediately followed qualifying for the NASCAR All-Star Race.

It’s a rare treat for the CARS Tour, and Berry hopes we get to see more of that in the future.

“It’s obviously really cool to get them on FS1,” said Berry during a media availability at the track. “The biggest thing, to me, is just the racing is good. Hopefully, tonight puts on a good show, but they go to tons of different tracks around here that put on really good racing, so the biggest thing is I just hope it draws a good audience and gets people excited about it to where they can do it more often.”

The race got off to an awkward start with about 15 cars involved in a Lap 2 pileup, but it found its rhythm soon after that with Landen Lewis capturing the win.

Berry critical of ARCA

“I’ll be honest,” continued Berry. “I watch ARCA races and they’re horrible. CARS Tour puts a way better product on to be on TV and they deserve a spot like that. I think hopefully tonight they do that. Hopefully, they don’t get too crazy – everybody getting wild on television. Hopefully, we can get the races started and stay on time, but I’m excited to see how it does. I think it’s a great product. The series is obviously really competitive. It’s more competitive than ever and way more competitive than even when I was a part of it, so it’s a lot of positives for that deal. Hopefully, they knock it out of the ball park.”

The CARS Tour race featured 36 cars, with 15 finishing on the lead lap. Objectively speaking, it’s fair to say that the tour does put together far stronger fields than ARCA on most weeks. 26 cars started the most recent event at Kansas, but many of those were terribly off the pace and parked their cars within the first 30 laps. Only ten drivers have started each of the first four races of the year. In 2024, just eight drivers ended up running the full season. 

Even still, Berry’s comments irked some people the wrong way with some criticizing him for tearing one series down while trying to lift another up. He does have some first-hand experience in ARCA as well, albeit limited, running two races in 2018 and 2022.