Patrick Emerling Starts NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Season in Victory Lane

Patrick Emerling finished 2024 as one of the hottest drivers on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. Emerling is starting 2025 on a similarly high note after winning the New Smyrna Beach Area Visitors Bureau 200 at New Smyrna Speedway.

Emerling took the lead from Craig Lutz shortly after a lap 182 restart, maintaining the top spot through a green-white-checkered overtime restart for his eighth career NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory.

“I just have to thank everyone involved for this opportunity," said Emerling in victory lane. "This wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for Rich Gautreau, my family, and this whole awesome crew right here.

“We have the best crew in the garage, best team, best everything. Thank you for everyone involved. This is incredible. This is what we expected to do."

Emerling went to the rear of the field at the start of the race after post-qualifying adjustments due to an engine issue. However, he remained confident he could drive the No. 1 entry back through the field with a different strategy and plenty of speed.

"We made it a little harder on ourselves. We had a little motor issue. We started dead last today, but we knew. I’ve won races like that before in this series. It just puts you on a different schedule and a different pit cycle, really, to get you there.”

For Emerling, the 2025 season starts much like the 2024 season ended. While 2024 champion Justin Bonsignore won the final three races of the year, Emerling won three of the four races before that streak, giving him four NWMT victories in the last eight events.

“I was just tearing up for a second," said Emerling. "Just absolutely incredible, I was so happy. To do it in the first race of the season. I think we were the best team for the majority of the year last year. We’re just trying to pick up where we left off.

“We were just so dialed. The fastest car on the race track, these are the fastest cars I’ve driven in my life. We can just go out there, do our thing. Everyone just has to execute, and we’ll finish like this."

Lutz settled for a second-place finish after battling with Emerling late for the lead. Lutz was hungry for a victory to open the new season, coming away with a strong finish.

“This race is so tough," said Lutz. "With 200 laps, the different tire strategies, a fuel stop, it’s a whole team effort. The first two cautions, we got behind on track position, so I didn’t know what was going to pan out here.

“All my guys dug deep all day. We made good adjustments. My crew chief, Doug Ogiejko, did a great job. All my guys did a great job on their stops. We wanted this one bad for our fellow team member of ours that we lost at Martinsville. This was our first race without him. We were trying like hell, but Pat had a great car. The best car won, but we gave it a fight.”

Meanwhile, Bonsignore's title defense started with a roller-coaster evening and a third-place finish. Officials assessed Bonsignore a one-lap penalty for stopping to bring out a caution when he suffered a flat tire in the first half of the race.

The four-time series champion recovered, eventually getting his lap back, suffering a separate incident with the outside wall exiting turn two, and still persevering to a podium finish.

“Just a wild night," said Bonsignore. "A tire went down like a half-a-lap into a restart. There’s really nothing you can do, you’ve just got to take that penalty. You’d be four to five laps down if you came down pit road.

“It was just a hard-fought night after that. We didn’t get the lucky dog as early as we would have liked. Off of two, I ran out of talent and knocked the fence down. That probably hurt us the most of anything. Probably knocked the rear out of alignment pretty bad.

“We still fought back. We were struggling there at the end. Just loose on every set of tires after the flat. That green-white-checkered probably saved us.”

Luke Baldwin and Austin Beers finished fourth and fifth after sharing the front row to start the race. Stephen Kopcik, Eric Goodale, Ryan Newman, Ron Silk and Andrew Krause rounded out the top 10.

-Photo credit: NASCAR Regional on X

New Smyrna Beach Area Visitors Bureau 200 Unofficial Results