Austin Beers Charges to Race of Champions Bunny Hop 75 Victory

Austin Beers pulled a rabbit of his own out of the hat in the Bunny Hop 75 at Mahoning Valley Speedway on Saturday night.

Beers started last in the 27-car field of Race of Champions Modified Series competitors, but raced his way through the field to win the season-opening event. Beers took the lead from Lou Strohl with three laps to go in the event, completing his charge through the pack for the victory.

The Pennsylvania driver was a scratch during both time trials and heat races to set the evening's lineup, as he and his team diagnosed a mechanical issue on his car. That made for a long day at the track as well as an uphill battle in the feature, but it paid off with a trip to victory lane.

"I've got to thank those guys so much," said Beers. "All of our guys, all the Blewett guys. We were kind of stumped on what the problem was. It ended up being the fuel pump, we think. What a hell of a race.

"I'm out of breath. That was pretty intense. I've got to thank Louie. He ran me really clean. That was really fun. Definitely fun coming through the pack there. I just had to bide my time. My dad did an amazing job being a spotter. He's not great at it, but he's getting there. He's doing really good now, but it feels really good to get a win here."

Beers' pass for the lead came on lap 73, as he muscled to the inside of Strohl entering turn one. With Strohl protecting the inside line around the tight quarter-mile at Mahoning Valley, Beers knew it would take one more surprise to take the win.

"I just didn't really have enough drive," explained Beers. "I was tight, which built free towards the end of the run. I couldn't get the run around the top and he was doing a good job of protecting the bottom out of two. I knew my opportunity would be out of four when he wouldn't expect it. He got a little high, and this thing just gripped up enough to where I could motor on next to him and break his momentum."

Strohl had to pass quite a few cars in his own right to get to the front, slipping back in the field in the opening laps after starting 10th. However, patience paid off as he took the lead on a lap 55 restart, following an incident with Matt Hirschman and Jack Ely as they battled for the top spot.

"I was like 14th or 15th there after that first caution," said Strohl. "You know what, I kept my strategy. I knew the car was really good. I just kept to my strategy and passed them where I could. Didn't use the tires up. The clutch was slipping so hard. I couldn't throttle up off of two or off of four. He could, and that's how he got me. You can only do so much. If that clutch hadn't been slipping, the roles would have been reverse, but that's okay. That's racing, and we were fast."

Blake Barney rounded out the podium, running in the top three for most of the evening. It was a bittersweet outcome, as Barney was pleased to have front-running pace but disappointed to see a chance at a win slip away.

"I mean, it's always good to come out here and have a good top-three finish, but I'm just a little disappointed," said Barney. "I felt like there was a lot of opportunities for me to win and it kind of falls on me a little bit.

"I got that restart in the lead and I felt like he jumped it. I'm not mad at him, you know? He's just trying to win the race, but seems like it was a little egregious and had a full car on me at the line, but it's whatever. It's my fault, I should have maybe went earlier, too.

"From there, I was just trying to see what they were doing up front. They had a pretty good battle and it made for an exciting finish. I didn't really want to mess that up and kind of just jump when they were weak, but that really didn't happen for me. Kind of disappointed, but at the same time, any time you can come here with a stout field like this and finish top three, you can't really be too mad about it."

Ron Silk finished fourth, with Daren Scherer finishing fifth. Hirschman rebounded from his incident to finish sixth, followed by Brian Defebo, Paulie Hartwig, III, Jaden Brown and Don Wagner.

The Race of Champions Modified Series returns to action on May 10 at Chemung Speedrome. Fans can watch the Race of Champions Family of Series all season long on RacingAmerica.TV by clicking here.

-Photo credit: MoJo Photos/Race of Champions

Bunny Hop 75 Unofficial Results