Austin Beers Wins Tour-type Modified Opener on Monday at New Smyrna

While the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour raced on Saturday night at New Smyrna Speedway, the battle for the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing's Tour-type Modified championship began on Monday night. Austin Beers scored the first victory in that fight, taking the checkered flag in Monday's 59-lap feature.

Beers took the lead from Ryan Preece on the 11th lap and distanced himself from the field on a long green-flag run to end the event. Beers finished more than two and a half seconds ahead of Stephen Kopcik for an impressive victory.

“This team did an awesome job all day, just getting this car the way it needed to be for the long runs," said Beers. "How we perform with these long runs on Monday that usually happen, and we were prepared for that. We just ran our own pace, tried to keep Timmy [Solomito] at a safe spot. When Kopcik got there, I had enough room with all the lapped cars to maintain my gap and hold on.”

Monday's victory was Beers' first at New Smyrna Speedway, but he boasts plenty of strong runs at the Florida half-mile. On Saturday, Beers led 46 laps and scored a top-five finish with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. Beers lamented not taking the win on Saturday night, but was fortunate there were no late cautions to take away his advantage on Monday.

“I feel like I gave the race away personally on Saturday. I was waiting for a yellow just like Saturday to give me a chance to give it up again, I guess.”

Kopcik settled into second place in the final running order, pleased with a strong showing on a night that usually comes with twists and turns to start the battle for a World Series championship.

“I feel really good about it," said Kopcik. "The first night’s always a little bit of a crapshoot. It usually sets the tone for the week. If we can build off of what we just did here, we should have a good week.”

Saturday's winner, Patrick Emerling, finished third to continue a strong start to his World Series. While the car was a little too loose for his liking, Emerling was content with a third-place effort.

“We’re not really used to these tires, but we had a really good car," said Emerling. "We started out just a little bit free and tried to manage it, just trying to keep the car pointed in the right direction.

“We have that tough restart on the bottom there. It was all bottled up, it was just a bad restart on the bottom. We lost a little bit of track position there. We passed some cars and got a lot of it back. A caution towards the end would have been nice, but the car had a ton of speed. I think we have a little ways to go to get it quite a bit faster.”

Timmy Solomito finished fourth, with Craig Lutz rounding out the top five. Preece finished sixth after leading the first 10 laps, followed by Cam McDermott, Eric Goodale, Anthony Nocella and Amy Catalano.

The Tour-type Modifieds will be in action each of the next four nights in their battle for a World Series title. Tuesday's race will be a 50-lap feature following the ASA STARS National Tour Clyde Hart Memorial 200.

-Photo credit: Tom Morris Racing Photography

Tour-type Modified 59 Unofficial Results