It’s arguably the richest, biggest and most star-studded Tour Type Modified race to ever take place in the southeast with a name that reflects it.
It’s the King of the Modifieds, a SMART Tour sanctioned race, taking place on Saturday at South Boston Speedway in Virginia.
Here’s a reset for the uninitiated: The SMART Tour has started to do tremendous business in revitalizing southern Tour Type Modified racing alongside Bowman Gray Stadium. It schedules races around The Madhouse and the combination has made the discipline a hot ticket throughout the Mid-Atlantic.
Thus, the tour has scheduled a $100,000 purse race at South Boston — paying $20,000-to-win and $10,000-for-second — inviting some heavy hitters from New England and the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour as a result.
Carson Loftin, the 15-year-old son of short track mainstay Brian Loftin, has emerged as a wunderkind prospect this season in winning the first two SMART Tour races of the season at Florence and Caraway. It wasn’t just that he won the races, it’s that he defeated the likes of Matt Hirschman and Ryan Newman in the process.
Speaking of Newman, the 2008 Daytona 500 winner is full-time on the tour and has opened the season with finishes of third and second, in pursuit of a championship one year after winning the final SRX title.
He did race at SoBo once with SRX.
“This is my first opportunity to race a Modified here,” Newman said during a test last week. “This is a big race here at South Boston Speedway, and that’s why we’re here testing, getting the car where it feels good and drives good, and has speed. That seems to be what we came off of the truck with.”
The Bowman Gray regulars also tend to be SMART contenders too and that’s reflected in Burt Myers and Brandon Ward, who have both won titles at the Madhouse.
“I love coming to South Boston, and to come up here for an event like this, for a purse like this, makes it more special,” said Myers during the test. “Just think of the title, not just the title, but also the purse. You’d better be fast. We’re going to be racing against some of the best Modified drivers and some of the best equipment in the country.”
Myers said near the end of testing he was confident in his car.
“We actually feel really good about it,” Myers said. “The car is really comfortable, really stable.”
Ward echoed those sentimentS.
“There will be a lot of good cars here and it will be a real tough race to win,” he added. “I feel like we’ll be in good shape. I feel good about our chances. Today we had time to run through several different scenarios so hopefully when we unload next weekend we will unload pretty much where we feel like we need to be and just fine-tune on it during practice on race day.”
Challenging these southern stalwarts, most notably, is six-time NASCAR Modified Tour champion Doug Coby, making a rare non-NASCAR trip down south to drive the Tommy Baldwin Racing No. 7NY.
Baldwin said he’s been motivated to end Loftin’s streak and brought out a big gun to do it.
Matt Hirschman, has won nine of the 15 SMART Tour races he’s entered over the past three years, and why wouldn’t Big Money Matt enter the richest race in the history of the discipline with a title like King of the Modifieds.
Chris Pasteryak, Woody Pitkat and Jimmy Blewett are also all making trips down south for this race.
The SMART Tour King of the Modifieds is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. at South Boston and will air on FloRacing.
The entry list can be found below.
- Burt Myers
- Stephen Kopcik
- Joey Coulter IV
- Ryan Newman
- Brandon Ward
- Jason Myers
- Chris Pasteryak
- Doug Coby
- Luke Baldwin
- Tyler Barry
- Andrew Krause
- Jake Crum
- Brian Loftin
- Jonathan Cash
- Daniel Yates
- Jimmy Wallace
- Jim Gavek
- Jason Tutterow
- Carson Loftin
- Bryce Bailey
- Danny Bohn
- Tom Buzze
- Blake Barney
- Gary Young Jr.
- Jayden Harman
- Matt Hirschman
- Austin Kochenash
- Paul Hartwig Jr
- Jimmy Blewett
- Will Lambros
- Anthony Bello
- Woody Pitkat
- Caleb Heady
