Brandon Ward and Kevin Powell Speed announced their intention to chase the SMART Tour championship over the weekend and opened that campaign with a victory on Saturday afternoon in the season opening event at Florence Motor Speedway.
That this race was the Zach Brewer Memorial, named after a dearly departed friend, made it all the more sweeter to the two-time Bowman Gray Stadium Tour Type Modified champion.
“This is one that was on the list for this year,” Ward said in Victory Lane on the FloRacing broadcast. “This is hands down the most meaningful win for me, because of Zach. First of all, I want to thank Steve Zacharias and his family, everyone at Florence Motor Speedway for putting on this event for Zach and his family, they’re all here.”
Ward proceeded to name every single member of the Brewer family in attendance.
“They’ve all been friends of mine since I was 8 years old,” continued Ward. “Yeah, this one is big. We had a really good car. Baldwin was good at the end. He was a little better than we were. We just got tight at the end and couldn’t roll the center of the corner. Thanks to him for racing us hard but clean. I knew it was going to come down to us. Danny was good and always enjoy racing with him. These guys, KevinSaysYes.com and Polaris Offroad, first race with us, so that’s pretty cool.”
Ward mentioned Baldwin, and it was actually Jack Baldwin, and not two-time and defending champion, Luke, who was crashed out of the race earlier due to a collision with former CARS Tour race winner Austin McDaniel.
Jack made Ward work for it, sticking with him nose-to-tail in the closing laps, and giving him several shots to the rear bumper. Ward held on to his car and drove away to his second victory in the SMART Tour ranks.
“Yeah, I could roll good right up to his bumper but the way his car was handling, I’d catch him in a bad spot and I couldn’t get the power down to drive off on either end,” Baldwin said. “Congrats to Brandon and his team on a great race.
“A couple of weeks ago, we didn’t think we’d be running all these races, but a huge partner, Stoke Shoes, came on board to let us chase a championship.”
He also had multi-time NASCAR Modified Tour champion crew chief Ryan Stone working on his car this weekend.
Danny Bohn was also in the mix late and had to settle for third.
“Stagger just opened up that last run,” Bohn said. “It was better before we pitted than it was the last 10 laps there. I got to thank my guys. We had a good car. I’m on the fence about that restart. He was a half car ahead of me coming to the line. I don’t know.
“The 7 might have got into the back of me. When you get on the outside there and you have to run that hard with a new tire, that changes the race. Hats off to Brandon. They have a really good team. Really cool to race in the memory of Zach Brewer. Raced against him for a couple of years.”
Jake Crum led the first 42 laps before Ward got him in traffic.
Zach Brewer Memorial
Florence Motor Speedway
February 28 2026
- Brandon Ward
- Jack Baldwin
- Danny Bohn
- Joey Braun
- Ryan Newman
- Burt Myers
- Slate Myers
- Chris Pasteryak
- Sean McElearney
- Jake Crum
- Carter McMurray
- Joey Coulter
- Austin McDaniel
- William Lambros
- Max Handley
- Jimmy Wallace
- Daniel Yates
- Hermie Sadler
- Jonathan Cash
- John-Michael Shennette
- Jim Gavek
- Steve Zacharias
- Jason Tutterow
- Luke Baldwin
