Landon Huffman hasn’t made a CARS Tour start since the end of May, but that will change this weekend at Hickory Motor Speedway when Huffman returns for the Throwback 276 with a new team and a special scheme honoring his father, Robert Huffman.

Huffman will be piloting a No. 37 machine owned by Justin Carroll and Carroll Speedshop. It will have sponsorship from Wilson Sigmon and Sig’s Tire Centers, the same sponsor that his father had when he won his last Late Model race 31 years ago in 1993.

“It’s pretty special,” said the younger Huffman to FloRacing on Monday. “Dad raced a lot of cars over his time. One of the cool things about doing the throwback at Hickory is Dad ran a lot of different Late Models at Hickory. And not just Late Model cars, but the Dash car and others. This one is pretty cool.”

Huffman said that he has a list of schemes his father raced throughout the years between Late Model racing and in the now-defunct Goody’s Dash Series that he references every time the CARS Tour’s annual Throwback weekend comes around. 

“He’s got a couple that I’ve had put away for a throwback weekend,” Huffman said. “The opportunity to do this car came about with the same sponsor he had on the car when Dad won in it in 1993. It’ll be the same scheme, original sponsors. We’re having the original owner, Wilson Sigmon, come out, and a lot of the employees from Sig’s Tire Centers are coming and going to be at the race track. Maybe we can recreate the victory lane picture at the end of the night.”

The 2024 season didn’t begin how Huffman envisioned it would. He started the year with plans to run the entire CARS Tour schedule for Jimmy Mooring Racing, but when he and the team failed to qualify for the season-opener at Southern National Motorsports Park their entire season was derailed almost immediately. From there it was bad luck on top of more bad luck before Huffman eventually split with JMR and dropped off the CARS Tour as a full-time driver to focus on winning races at the weekly racing level again.

But now Huffman, the 2022 track champion at Hickory, is teaming up with Justin Carroll, who has won plenty of weekly races at Hickory and also won the inaugural Throwback 276 at Hickory back in 2017. And that has Huffman confident again that he can show up on Saturday night at his home track and be in the conversation in a positive way again.

“Hickory is always a place where I feel like I can show up and be competitive,” said Huffman. “I’ve run well there in the past. I haven’t had great finishes in the CARS Tour, but I sat on the pole there what feels like 30 years ago (2016). I always show up to Hickory and feel like I have confidence with as much success and as many laps around there as I have. With Justin and his dad’s knowledge, they’ve run well there and have had success. Now just with the CARS Tour, but they’ve won a good deal of weekly races too. They have nice equipment. Any time you pair nice equipment and smart people, and I like to think I can get around there pretty good. You add those three things together and it’s usually a pretty solid combination.”

Huffman has raced in a Carroll Speedshop-prepared race car one time prior to this, back in 2022 during Huffman’s championship season at Hickory. But Huffman said the two drivers and team owners have been friends for a long time and are frequently leaning on each other when needed. Huffman even purchased a car from Carroll over the winter that he just used to win a weekly race at Tri-County Motor Speedway a few weeks ago.

“I’ve raced against Justin at Hickory and Tri-County and Greenville-Pickens back in probably 2016 or 2017. Justin had just moved from Legends to Late Models. We got to be friends during that time period and it just continued through the years,” Huffman explained. “I bought a car from him over the winter, which was actually the car I just won in at Tri-County a couple weeks back. He’s been bouncing ideas off me and I’d been leaning on him for support with that car since it was one he’d built and raced. Everything transpired with the Jimmy Mooring car, and that opened me up to do something like this. We got some sponsor funding together and it all came together, so we’re going to give it a shot this weekend.”

While the goal is always to win, one goal has already been achieved for Huffman and the weekend hasn’t even arrived yet. His father is excited to see his old scheme hit the track, and that has the younger Huffman happy.

“He’s excited. You never know with Dad. He’s a man of few words. I can tell when he’s excited, but not a lot of people can,” Huffman said with a laugh. “Unless we’re in victory lane. It’s pretty evident then. But he thinks it’s cool and like I said we’ve done cool stuff in the past with other memorable cars Dad has had. But this one is pretty cool because it’s been 31 years since Dad’s last Late Model win.”

Fans can watch Huffman’s CARS Tour return on Saturday night in the annual CARS Tour Throwback 276 at Hickory Motor Speedway live on FloRacing with a FloRacing subscription. Fans can subcribe to FloRacing by clicking here.

Race fans are also encouraged to vote for their favorite throwback scheme throughout the weekend on FloRacing beginning on Friday evening.