It’s one thing to get your first SK Modified win. It’s something else to hold off the last two track champions to do it.
That’s exactly what Tyler Hines did Saturday afternoon, beating out Keith Rocco and Ronnie Williams to pick up the Stafford Motor Speedway SK Modified season-opener. The win came in Hines’ 89th start in the division.
“That was incredible,” Hines said. “I’m shaking right now. That’s awesome. Those last 10 laps were just so long.”
Hines credited the win to offseason work by his team.
“These guys did an unreal job getting this car where it is today,” Hines said. “If you knew where we were three months ago, and how much work we had to put in to get this thing here, you wouldn’t have thought we would be this good.”
Rounding out the top-five were Chase Dowling and Michael Gervais. Sixth was Matt Vassar, followed by Bryan Narducci, Doug Meservey Jr, Todd Owen and Mikey Flynn.
After starting on the pole, the 26-year-old Hines shot away from the pack and led all 40 laps.
Over the second half of the race, Hines was put under pressure on several restarts as the cautions began to pile up.
The race was slowed by seven yellow flags. Three cars were eliminated from contention in a pile-up on lap 22, when Andrew Molleur slammed into the turn two wall and Jonathan Puleo was sent airborne as cars tried avoiding Molleur.
After starting 21st due to a wreck in his heat, Rocco’s admirable charge to the front came up one spot short. On the final restart, Rocco moved up to second, but was unable to get close enough to Hines to make a move for the win.
The full results can be found below:
- Tyler Hines
- Keith Rocco
- Ronnie Williams
- Chase Dowling
- Michael Gervais
- Matt Vassar
- Bryan Narducci
- Doug Meservey Jr.
- Todd Owen
- Mikey Flynn
- Mike Christopher Jr.
- Marcello Rufrano
- David Arute
- Teddy Hodgdon
- Stephen Kopcik
- Noah Korner
- Tyler Leary
- Max Zachem
- Joey Ternullo
- Tom Bolles
- Dan Avery
- Andrew Molleur
- Daniel Wesson
- Jonathan Puleo
- Troy Talman
- Wesley Prucker
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