Craig Lutz earns a special Modified Tour victory at Richmond

Thursday’s Virginia is for Racing Lovers 150 at Richmond Raceway delivered Craig Lutz multiple opportunities to experience joy.

After five straight NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour finishes outside the top five, the No. 46 Goodie Racing crew unloaded a rocket ship at Richmond. Lutz posted the second best lap in the afternoon’s first practice, and he paced the second session. He qualified fourth despite a mistake on his hot lap. In the race, his team employed a strategy that placed him amongst a handful of contenders on the lead lap in the closing stages.

That’s when Lutz found himself running down race and Modified Tour points leader Austin Beers.

That’s when the joy reached a climax.

“Seeing the gap close and knowing you have the better car … it’s awesome,” Lutz said. “As a driver, that’s the best feeling ever, especially in the closing laps.”

Lutz, of course, easily executed the winning pass in the closing laps of Thursday’s Modified Tour race, the first of a NASCAR weekend trio at Richmond Raceway ahead of Friday’s Craftsman Truck Series tilt and Saturday’s Cup Series event.

That winning pass, though, was the only thing easy about Lutz’s triumph.

The 31-year-old racer from Miller Place, New York in his post-race media sessions consistently cited the Modified Tour’s parity. He became the series’ third driver to win multiple races this season, a year that began with eight winners over the first eight events.

“It’s so hard,” Lutz said. “You do this, and the end goal is to win races, and you put so much time and effort into all you do. All the money it takes. All the frustration, all the time. So when you do win, it’s that much more special. Especially when the field is so close. Everyone has the same car, same motor, same package, so when you do win, it’s just that much more special.”

Now a six-time winner in 148 Modified Tour races over a 12-year span, Lutz knows nothing is promised in this series, even with what he described as the best strategy with the best car at the track Thursday.

A caution for a Tommy Catalano spin on Lap 26 of 150 allowed Lutz and others a chance at an early pit stop. During the subsequent, 58-lap green flag run, he needed every millisecond of speed and every inch of track position to reach a second and final stop. But for Lutz and five others, the long-run strategy paid dividends. More so for Lutz than the others.

Lutz on the final restart of the race with 42 laps to go fired off tight. He was furious.

And his anger proved premature.

Just as the team hoped, Lutz’s car reached an ideal balance as his tires faded. The opposite was the case for Beers, who lost the lead with eight laps to go in what quickly became an inevitability.

“Austin’s the points leader, great team — they’re running really good,” Lutz said. “When you race those guys, you race them with respect, and they give it back to you. So it was fun racing with him at the end.”

Adding to the context of Lutz’s massive win Thursday is the fact that Richmond is far from his best track. He won the Tour race at North Wilkesboro Speedway earlier this season, another “bigger” track for series standards, but he knew the team would need more than just raw speed to succeed at a track where he had never finished better than seventh.

Lutz said his brother and some team members are big into iRacing, and he used the platform to prepare for Thursday’s tilt: “I buckled down and did some races, and it helped.

“The last three or four times here, I really struggled. It’s just one of those places I couldn’t get a hold of. I tried to do a lot of homework.”

Lutz’s win at Richmond places him in a tie with Matt Hirschman for fourth in Modified Tour championship points. When asked after the race whether his standing is top of mind, he was quick to deflect and reference the joy of a single win. He said he’s here to win, and hopefully, a championship will present itself as a goal in the near future.

He’s chasing a title, yes. But he’s also chasing the thrill of victory, the joy that overcomes a race-car driver when he knows he and his team have done exactly what they set out to do.

That’s the joy Lutz experienced Thursday.

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