A critical missed shift is all that seemingly separated 44-year-old Rob Summers from his first NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory on Saturday night at Myrtle Beach Speedway.

The Manchester, Connecticut native has competed in parts of every Tour season since 1998 but hasn’t yet been able to secure his first victory. He captured his first pole since 2001 earlier in the afternoon and led the most laps but was foiled on a pair of similar incidents over the final five laps of the race.

Simmers twice spun his tires on a restart, tried to throw his car into fourth gear, and couldn’t get it there. This stacked up the field twice and caused two crashes. The latter one with two laps to go cost him the lead.

NASCAR determined that he was involved in the second and slotted him third for the final restart. He quickly picked off Andy Seuss for the second spot but ran out of laps to pick off eventual winner Timmy Solomito. Thus he was forced to dejectedly settle for second.

“I’m sick to my stomach,” Summers said after the race. “We had a great car. I spun the tires and couldn’t get it to fourth gear. It killed it. I just don’t understand why NASCAR threw us back to fourth because we didn’t complete a lap before the caution waved.

“But it is what it is.”

This was Summers’ 149th career start and his pole was his first in 17 years. He has 16 top-5s in those races. He led the most laps at Myrtle Beach and admits he’s going to want this one back in the morning.

“You know, I just hate to give another one away, but it’s my fault for missing the shift,” Summer said. “I don’t know how else to feel about it.”

Summers is expected to return to full-time this season after running partial schedules for much of the past decade. Based on Saturday night, he’ll have more chances to pick up his first win.