Carson Loftin claims fourth SMART Tour win in six races

The SMART Modified Tour remains the personal playground for 16-year-old Carson Loftin.

The second-generation short tracker, and emerging Tour Type Modified prodigy, claimed his fourth win in six races this season by reaching Victory Lane in the Hickory Hundred.

As has been the case in all of wins, Loftin defeated two of the best in Matt Hirschman and Burt Myers on Saturday at Hickory Motor Speedway. The winning pass was the culmination of a prolonged battled that started around 50 to go and concluded with 32 to go.

Loftin got away on a restart with 22 laps to go and that was the race, as it were, as Myers pressured Hirschman and took second. Myers got beside Loftin on several occasions over the final 10 laps but could not override the stronghold Loftin has over this series right now.

“I wanted to get by Hirschman early like we did because I knew track position would be key once we all took our tire,” Loftin said. “Burt raced me clean there and so did Matt and I hope it was a good show for the fans.”

And he took no exception to Myers attempting a bit of a slide job either.

“No, like I said, I hoped it was a good show,” he said. “We’re racing door to door for a win. I can’t thank him enough for keeping it clean and classy like he did there.”

Myers thought it was a 100 laps race, and which it’s a fair point, because it’s the Hickory Hundred but it seemingly was a 99 lapper.

“The restarts are an issue, 55,000 caution laps and I apologize on behalf of SMART racing fans because we hate it as much as you do,” the charismatic Myers said on the frontstretch. “Everyone is learning. We’re trying our best.

“On our end, good run for us … it’s a tough one because I thought we had the best car but it will come back around.”

Unofficial results

1. Carson Loftin
2. Burt Myers
3. Matt Hirschman
4. Joey Coulter
5. Jake Crum