Hampton, VA – To become a winner in the sport of racing is one thing. To win a track championship is another. To win your very first track championship in the same campaign as your very first national championship well, that is just not something you hear every day.
For Connor Hall that dream has become his reality in 2023 as NASCAR announced earlier this week that Hall has officially been crowned the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Racing Series Division-I National Champion. The Hampton native earned an impressive eighteen wins during the time frame that NASCAR tracks national points. More than three-quarters of those wins would come at his home track – Langley Speedway. For Hall, a track championship was not on his mind in 2023 much less the national title. Hall’s plan for 2023 was to compete full-time in the CARS Late Model Stock Tour with Chad Bryant Racing. The goal here was to bring a CARS Tour championship to their shop. All that changed mid-August when the wins at Langley Speedway, among other short tracks around the region, kept coming their way.
“Watching Connor’s determination towards success in racing while balancing his educational journey culminating with a degree from Hampden-Sydney College as well as getting his USCG Captain license makes me extremely proud,” said Denise Hall, Connor Hall’s mother. “As his Dad, it means many things, however, I am so proud to see Connor reach this milestone achievement towards his lifelong goal [of] racing at NASCAR’s highest level,” Earl Hall commented.
Hall has now turned his attention to Martinsville Speedway where he and Chad Bryant Racing look to break the National Championship “curse” and win this year’s ValleyStar Credit Union 300. Spending most of the afternoon in the top thirty. Hall would wrap up practice fifteenth on the speed charts.
“This has been like every other Martinsville year,” Hall said as he climbed from his 77b Townebank, Breeden Concrete Late Model. “You unload how you unload and kind of wait for the track to take. I know the guys at Chad Bryant [Racing] made some really good adjustments and I feel like we have a really good piece for tonight. The past two years I have run this race there just have been issues that took us out of contention. We are just going to keep all that out the way and give us the best chance at a win.”
Hall unofficially qualified twenty-sixth in the eighty-four-car field when all was said and done. An ominous elephant in the proverbial room, however, is the unofficial “National Champions Curse.” In recent history, the winner of the NASCAR Weekly Series national title has never won this event in the same calendar year. We asked Connor before heading back to the garage to prep for qualifying if he could be the one to change that.
“Yea I mean that’s why we show up,” Hall said with confidence. “Regardless I just want a really, really strong run this year so that way when we come back in the future we aren’t chasing some Hail Mary. It would also prove that our program is a top-five program here at Martinsville. I want to come here year to year and knock out top fives and improve for the next.”
Gates will open for fans at 12:30 followed by the on-track autograph session scheduled from 12:45 to 2:30 PM. The first of four heat races are scheduled to roll off at 3:00 PM.
