Austin Beers wins the 2025 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship

We all have dreams.

Some dreams can be simple, like hoping Santa Claus brings you a new PlayStation for Christmas.

Other dreams, like the one shared by Austin Beers and Mike Murphy, are a bit more complicated.

Beers, a 22-year-old, second-generation racer from Northampton, Pennsylvania, and Murphy, a 68-year-old Irish immigrant, dreamed of someday winning the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship together.

On Thursday night, Beers and Murphy got to live out their dream. Driving Murphy’s No. 64 KLM Motorsports Modified, Beers finished second in the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 200 to clinch his first championship in NASCAR’s oldest division.

“The biggest thing for me coming in was don’t think about it; don’t think about it, or you’re going to jinx it,” Beers told himself. “I didn’t really think about what I’d say or how I’d feel.”

He didn’t have to say much. In 2025, Beers let his driving do the talking.

In 16 Modified Tour races this season, Beers never finished worse than ninth. He scored two wins – at Lancaster Motorplex and Riverhead Raceway – to go along with 12 top fives and 16 top 10s.

He was the only driver to complete every possible lap this season, and he led all drivers with a 4.6 average finish.

Despite all those incredible stats, he still had to survive Thursday’s race to win his first championship. He avoided a multi-car melee during a restart and survived an overtime sprint to finish second, more than enough to clinch the championship.

Anxiety and stress levels were at all-time highs, but Beers showed maturity and composure beyond his years during a race that could have easily derailed his entire season.

“I knew I just had to do what I’ve been doing my whole life – that was the biggest thing,” Beers said when discussing the final restart. “I brought it home to the line and heard (on the radio) 2025 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion. That was a great feeling.”

As if that wasn’t good enough, Beers wrote a new chapter in the Modified Tour history books with his first championship.

At 22 years, seven months and five days old, Beers is now the youngest champion in the history of the Modified Tour. He broke the record set by current NASCAR Cup Series driver Ryan Preece, who was 22 years, 11 months and 25 days old when he won his Mods championship in 2013.

Beers has come a long way from playing video games with Preece between practice sessions at Modified Tour races a decade ago.

“Ryan was young running the Tour and just getting started, and my dad (Eric) was running the Tour. He’d hang out in the camper with me, and we’d play video games,” Beers remembered. “All the other drivers and crew members would go to the bar after the races. I’ve looked up to Ryan my whole racing career and pretty much since I was 6 years old.”

Murphy, who most of his friends and family affectionately call “Murph,” has watched Beers take his small team from a mid-pack organization to champion in the span of just four years.

For the native of Waterford, Ireland, just being in position to win a Modified Tour championship was something he never fathomed when he bought his first race car in the mid-1990s.

“This beats all of our expectations,” Murphy said. “We never even dreamed we’d be in a position like this when we started 25 or 30 years ago. Dreams come true, right?

“I’d never even seen what the (championship trophy) looked like, because we’d usually be pitted way over (in Turn 4) and the (trophy) would be over (in Turn 1). In all the years we’d been doing it, I never saw it for that reason.”

The KLM Motorsports team is truly a family operation. The team, which is named after Murphy’s wife Maggie and children Lyndsey and Kelly, is led by former driver Ron Yuhas and Sly Szaban.

The group has flourished since tabbing Beers to drive the No. 64 for his rookie campaign in 2022. Beers delivered the team’s first Modified Tour win in 2023 at Richmond Raceway, and since then, he has added four more checkered flags to Murphy’s growing collection.

It’s all still a bit surreal for Murphy, who was forced to sit on the sidelines for much of the 2024 season and the start of the 2025 season due to a host of health issues.

In January, Murphy got a new lease on life when he received a bilateral lung transplant. By May, he was back at the race track watching his driver and team chase a championship.

This could have been the worst year of Murphy’s life. Instead, he’s the living embodiment of the American dream.

“This is the best year of my life. I got a second chance at life,” Murphy said. “Hard work, I would say, is all it takes. This is a great country. A country of opportunity. The only thing that is going to stop you is yourself.”

While the championship meant the world to Beers and his family, Beers felt it was more important to deliver the title to Murphy. After all, Murphy is the one who took a chance on an unproven, 18-year-old kid.

Murphy gave Beers all the tools he needed to become the Modified Tour champion. And Beers delivered.

“Murph gave me the ultimate break to run this car and get my name out there,” Beers said. “Obviously the last year was really tough not having him at the race track. With him getting that lung transplant, you don’t know what’s going to happen. It was a pretty emotional time for our whole team.

“He’s been running the Tour since my dad (Eric) was running (the Tour), so 2010 or 2011. After all these years of ups and downs, to finally deliver that championship to him, it means more to me to give that championship to him than for me to win that championship, honestly.

“I owe everything to Murph and Maggie for giving me this opportunity to begin with, because I wouldn’t have it without them.”

With a Modified Tour championship secured, Murphy hopes to have Beers back next season to chase another championship.

However, what Murphy really wants is for Beers to get an opportunity to move on to bigger and better things.

That’s his new dream. It’s a dream Murphy believes that, like Thursday’s championship, Beers can make a reality.

“I hope this is a stepping stone,” Murphy said. “He’s still young. He’s only 22. Hopefully there is somebody out there watching and will see how good he is, and maybe they’ll offer him a ride somewhere along the way.

“I’d love to see him walking in Preece’s footsteps. Can you imagine? You turn the television on Sunday and see him at the race and you say, ‘We knew him when he was only a kid.’

“That would be another unbelievable dream as good as this. Maybe better.”

This report originally appeared on NASCAR.com