Austin Beers joins dad as World Series Tour Modified winner

Austin Beers is a Tour Type Modified World Series of Asphalt winner at New Smyrna Speedway just like his father before him.

There was a bit of a lucky draw involved but Beers quickly drove from third to the lead by Lap 13, built a large lead, and was able to manage the gap as the race stayed green all the way through its completion on Lap 59.

Beers won by virtue of taking the lead from Ryan Preece, who was flipped to the pole from his seventh place qualifying effort, but also won in an event his father scored seven victories across 85 starts over the 90s and 2000s. That includes championships in 2004 and 2007. There was also some redemption from a NASCAR Modified Tour race that got away from him on Saturday.

“To take the lead from Ryan, someone who I looked up to and still root for on Sundays, it means a lot to me,” said Beers. “My dad has nine wins and two championships and it was kind of redemption from Saturday where I believe I lost us the race on the restart. It means a lot to get this win.”

Stephen Kopcik says he ‘screwed up’ in qualifying and started ninth but methodically worked his way through the field.

Kopcik did make it to second by the end, a long green flag run through lapped traffic.

“My spotter kept me focused, getting through the lap cars one by one,” Beers said. “He was giving  me a couple of laps notice before I got to someone to set them up but also put it in the back of my mind, who was coming and how hard they were driving; lap times.”

Kopcik was more that than satisfied with a second given that opening night has been chaotic at New Smyrna over the years.

“I feel really good about it,” Kopcik said. “The first night is always a little bit of a crapshoot. It usually set the store for the week.”

Emerling, who won the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour opener on Saturday, just put himself back with his draw. He had a pole car and started deep in the field.

“It’s a good opening night for us,” Emerling said. “We’re not really used to these tires. We had a really good car. We started out just a little bit free. … Tried keeping the car pointing in the right direction. Tough restarting on the bottom there. It was all bottled up. The bottom just didn’t … just a bad restart on the bottom. We lost a little bit of track position. We passed some cars and got a lot of it back. A caution toward the end would have been nice. But it felt really good. The car had a ton of speed. … I think we were the best car at the end of the race.”

The World Series will continue for the Tour Type Modifieds on Tuesday with a 50-lapper after the ASA STARS national tour season opener.

1. Austin Beers
2. Stephen Kopcik
3. Patrick Emerling
4. Timothy Solomito
5. Craig Lutz
6. Ryan Preece
7. Cam McDermott
8. Eric Goodale
9. Anthony Nocella
10. Amy Catalano
11. Jake Lutz
12. Dave Sapienza
13. Matt Hirschman
14. Andrew Krause
15. Trevor Catalano
16. JR Bertuccio
17. Jeffrey Battle
18. Chris Finocchario
19. Brian Robie
20. Jack Baldwin
21. Jeff Goodale
22. Danny Knoll
23. James Pritchard
24. Glenn Styres
25. Chris Hatton
26. Tyler Catalano
27. Rich Parker
28. Ronnie Williams
29. Norman Newman