Spotters steal the show at Little 600 at GoPro Motorplex

Published May. 20, 2015 4:15 p.m. ET

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The second annual Little 600 at GoPro Motorplex created some lasting memories and some hard racing Tuesday evening in Mooresville, North Carolina.

NASCAR drivers and many of the Sprint Cup Series spotters gathered at the outdoor karting track owned by driver Justin Marks to put their skills to the test behind the wheel of the Sodikart RT8 390cc rental karts.

The event was free for fans, and they came out in droves. The laid back atmosphere allowed the fans to meet drivers and get autographs between heat races.

"It's really special for us to put this on, because there's all these fun events around town during race week here in Charlotte, and to have a facility like this and not do something that is totally over the top and awesome like this just wouldn't do the place justice," Marks told FOXSports.com. "It's just an honor for us to get all these drivers here competing and for these fans to take time out of their day to watch it."

With the rental karts fairly evenly matched and chosen at random for each race, the drivers were racing hard, often putting the bumper to one another or running each other off the 7/10-mile Grand Prix style track.

"I don't come out here enough," Ricky Stenhouse Jr. said after one of the heat races. "I should bring some friends and do this more often. All in all, it's a great event. I love to see the fans come out and support it. Justin, and everyone here at GoPro Motorplex does an awesome job at putting on this event, and just making it fun for everybody. It's fun for the drivers, it's why we come. It's fun for people to watch. They've got the kids running their own karts. It's just really cool to see."

New to the Little 600 this year was a race among the Sprint Cup spotters. Usually stuck atop the track for the weekend, Tuesday night's event was a way for them to be in the spotlight, and for many, get back to their racing roots.

"I thought it was really cool they asked us if we wanted to do a spotters race and represent our Cup guys and our NASCAR teams," Derek Kneeland, spotter for Kyle Larson said. "A lot of us have a racing background and we just didn't make it up to that level, and now we get to do the second-best thing, and that's spot for guys we get to call our friends now."

"A lot of the spotters are past racers, from short track racers, all the way to XFINITY and Cup cars," Tyler Green, spotter for Aric Almirola, said. "It's our passion to be a driver. One way or another we ended up being spotters - whether we like it or not. We enjoy what we do, but we enjoy getting behind the wheel every once and a while."

Leading up to Tuesday's event, the close-knit group of spotters had been trashing-talking one another in a large group text.

"There was a little smack-talk going on," Kevin Hamlin, spotter for Kasey Kahne, said. "It's all in good fun. We're all friends, so it's a really cool event for all of us to hang out together.

While the group kept things somewhat civil, it was clear many were gunning for T.J. Majors, spotter for Dale Earnhardt Jr.

"Any time I can hurt T.J. Majors, I'm completely good with," Hamlin said. "Everybody else is cool, but if I can keep up with him and I can send him firewall-deep, I'm going to do it."

"These spotters have just taken this thing totally over," Marks said. "They're wearing their team's gear, they're trash-talking each other on the spotter's stand, and they put on a great race."

Once on the track, the spotters' predictions came to fruition as Kneeland, Hamlin, Major and Tyler Green, spotter for Aric Almirola, were the fastest of the group. However, that did not stop the rest of the field from beating and banging karts as they raced around the course.

2015 Little 600 Spotters' Race - qualifying from Kasey Kahne Racing on Vimeo.

During the race, Kneeland, Green and Hamlin pulled away from the field and battled it out at the front. Green was able to get by Kneeland in the closing laps, and as they came to down the long frontstretch to the checkered flag, Green throw a block all the way to the infield grass to hold on for the victory.

Green is no stranger behind the wheel. Like many spotters, Green has a background in racing. Green is a veteran of Charlotte Motor Speedway's Summer Shootout Series in the Bandolero and Legend Car series.

In his free time, Green gets his racing fix behind the wheel of a kart. That helped Tuesday evening as he took the victory, the unique binocular winner's trophy and a mason jar of American Born moonshine in the Little 600 spotter race at GoPro Motorplex in Mooresville, North Carolina.

"I've come out here quite a bit. There are a lot of surprises," Green said. "We practiced a couple weeks ago, and it seems the guys have picked it up a bunch. GoPro does a great job making the karts as equal as they can, but there's still a little difference in them."

Knowing they were two of the fastest drivers in the field, Green and Kneeland formulated a plan going into the main event.

"Me and Tyler have been friends a long time, and we get along great on top the spotter's stand," Kneeland said. "We had a plan coming in here, that if we could get to first and second we stay nose-to-tail as long as possible to try and break away from everybody. Then we would just duel it out from there."

Not only did Green and Kneeland duel it out, the race came down to a drag race to the checkered flag with Green throwing the block and nearly running Kneeland to the inside dirt.

The two crossed the finish line nearly side-by-side, with Kneeland sharing a one-finger salute before fist-bumping Green, who got the better of him.

"We promised each other we wouldn't wreck each other for the win," Kneeland said. "I held up on my end. If the shoe was on the other foot, I hope he wouldn't have done it to me. It was a great finish and I hope the fans enjoyed it, because it was a blast behind the wheel."

As for the actual racers, the day was full of practice sessions and heat races leading up to the main event for the Little 600. Each time the drivers hit the track, they jockeyed for position, ran each other off the track and traded paint.

Ryan Blaney and Ryan Truex quickly emerged as the fastest, but a host of other drivers were also fast, such as Stenhouse, John Hunter Nemechek and Chase Elliott.

At one point, Trevor Bayne's kart nearly flipped after contact with another kart. These guys were certainly giving it their all and the fans watching along the fence could certainly tell.

"These karts are just fast enough where you can draft, and it's hard to break that draft and ever get away," Elliott, the defending NASCAR XFINITY Series champion, said. "If you have just a couple bad corners the pack is right back on you. So it makes it wild."

Just before the 15-lap main event feature, clouds moved in and rain soaked the track. Not to be deterred, the race went on in slick conditions, making the least bit of contact much more significant.

In the end, Blaney drove away to a nearly four-second victory over Michael McDowell. Team Penske's Joey Logano showed up late for the event - well after all of the practices and heat races - but was third when the checkered flag flew.

For Marks and GoPro Motorplex, the Little 600 is not just a fun event in the middle of Charlotte race week, it is also an avenue to let fans know they can race the same karts the drivers and spotters were out competing in.

"A lot of racing you watch, you can't afford the race cars," he said. "These guys are racing the karts that are open to the public for 12 hours every day. That's what is really neat about it, all these fans can come out and watch, then over the next couple of days while they're in town looking for things to do they can come back and race these same exact karts and it's super accessible and fun."  

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