Frustration-Filled Day Ends with First Career Win for Cameron Moss

A Roller-Coaster Saturday Fraught with Issues Yields Maiden Victory for Young Racer

By Joe Chandler

Director, Public Relations

South Boston Speedway

SOUTH BOSTON, VA (April 23, 2026) – Cameron Moss didn’t expect his first career win would come this past Saturday.

“I said ‘of the days we can do it, this isn’t going to be one,’” Moss said of his thoughts prior to the race.

Race day leading up to his 20-lap Dollar General Hornets Division race at South Boston Speedway was another frustrating one for the Danville, Virginia resident. He has experienced this kind of frustration many times before.

“The whole race day was a roller coaster,” explained Moss. “We got a new tire for the right rear after we blew out the one we had last week. We put the new right rear (tire) on and got way too much stagger. I about backed the car into the fence in the first practice.

As if that wasn’t enough, another complication resulted.

“I flooded it (the engine) out,” Moss noted. “I think it fouled every spark plug in it, so I had to get a push to qualify. By the time my crew was able to push me off I got in only one lap. In my one lap, while I was pretty conservative, I clicked off a second place on the scoreboard.”

Nobody would suspect anything had become amiss after Moss took the green flag from his second starting position. An issue did surface, but Moss was able to overcome it.

“Midway through the race the car lost VVT (variable valve timing) and lift, which is a system Toyota engines have,” he explained. “I was driving the car much deeper into the corners to keep the average speed of the laps similar to what I had been running. I was just cruising, hoping they (other competitors) couldn’t catch me the last half of the race.”

Still, Moss put together a strong performance. He needed only one lap to surge past Landon Milam for the lead. He led the final 19 laps of the race to earn his first career win in his 36th career start in South Boston Speedway’s Dollar General Hornets Division.

“This win means a lot,” Moss said. “I’m happy I was finally able to get it done. I’ve always known I could do it. Now, I finally got the result. I’ve had a lot of people invest a lot of time in me, and it really means a lot to give them a return on their investment.

“It has picked up the motivation within my team,” Moss continued. “We’ve been doing it awhile and haven’t gotten much of anything out of it other than a free ham sandwich.”

Moss’s mother, Kristin Hardy, could hardly contain her excitement as she witnessed his win.

“I was ecstatic getting out of the stands and coming down to the start/finish line,” she remarked. “I was in awe. I had the biggest mom grin on my face. I was so excited for him.”

Moss has faced an endured some tough circumstances over the past few seasons.

“I’ve had a car awhile and I’ve had a lot of mechanical issues,” he said.

He cited a pair of incidents from last season to illustrate his point.

“After the halfway point in the season last year we blew a motor,” Moss noted. “We got the new engine in the car and there was some terrible air pocket that we couldn’t get out of it. We DNFed (did not finish) a quarter of the races.”

Moss encountered trouble at last season’s biggest race.

“The most humbling moment of the whole season last year was when I made hero cards for the Fourth of July race, and the car I had on the hero cards overheated in practice,” he said. “I had to drive all the way back to Danville, pick my other car up, and bring it back to the track. I had to sign autographs and hand out hero cards to the kids with the wrong car on them.

“I had to start last,” he added. “I knew I was going to run terrible in the biggest race of the year. I started 17th and finished 14th. That was just me jumping people on restarts in the back. I’ve finally got a good car and finally got it to run well enough to win a race.”

Hardy is proud of the way her son has handled the adversity and continued to move forward.

“It’s been challenging,” she pointed out. “There have been a lot of issues with the car. I feel like everything that can go wrong has gone wrong. He kept telling me ‘Mom, I know how to race. I just don’t have the car.’ I’m very proud of him because he has persevered through many obstacles. He’s never given up. That fire has never dimmed.”

While Moss has dealt with some frustrating times, he has compiled a solid record at South Boston Speedway since he began competing in the Hornets Divisions in 2022. In this season’s first two events he has a win, a pole and a pair of Top-5 finishes. He finished third in points in 2024, was fifth in points last season and has 10 Top-5 finishes and a 35 Top-10 finishes in his 36 career starts in the division.

He is also doing good things off the track. Moss is scheduled to graduate from Danville Community College on May 16 with a diploma in advanced precision machine technology.

Moss will be looking to add to his impressive early-season stats when the Dollar General Hornets Division competitors battle it out on Saturday night, May 2 in the division’s first twin-race event of the season. Twin 15-lap races are slated as part of the six-race Viny’s Italian Restaurant & Italian Delight Family Restaurant Race Night event at South Boston Speedway.

Twin 75-lap races for the Hitachi Energy Late Model Stock Car Division will headline the action for the first night race of the 2026 season. Fans will also see a 50-lap race for the Budweiser Limited Sportsman Division and a 25-lap race for the Southside Disposal Pure Stock Division.

The May 2 event schedule has practice starting at 3:25 p.m., frontstretch grandstand gates opening at 3:30 p.m., trackside parking gates opening at 5:30 p.m., qualifying at 6 p.m., pre-race ceremonies starting at 6:45 p.m. and the first race of the night starting at 7 p.m.

Adult advance tickets are priced at $12 each. Adult admission at the gate on race day is $15. Suite passes are $40 each. Seniors ages 65 and older, veterans and military personnel, first responders, healthcare workers and students with ID may purchase tickets for $12 each at the gate on race day. Kids ages 12 and under are admitted free.