Nothing displays a car’s raw speed and handling quite like the twin 25-lap races for the Brad’s Golf Cars Modified Series at Bowman Gray Stadium. And on Saturday, Jason Myers of Walnut Cove showed that he had the car to beat.
With starting position being determined strictly by qualifying, Myers turned the fastest lap to start up front and then led all the way. It was his sixth pole of the season and his third victory.
“You’ve got to have a good car to start up front. Fortunately, we do – and that’s where we’ve been starting from,” said Myers. “In these 25-lappers, when this thing gets up front, it is nasty.”
With no need to save tires or to hold anything back, each lap is just a white-knuckled, pedal-to-the-metal dash. “You get this number four car out front and this baby will run,” said Myers.
Jason Myers secured the lead on the opening lap with Tim Brown of Tobaccoville starting to his outside in second. “You’ve got to get a good start or else you’re going to lose the race on the first lap. We got it pointed and got it going,” said Myers.
Brown was caught on the outside row as older brother Burt Myers of Walnut Cove, who started third, moved up to claim second place on Jason Myers’s bumper. “The main concern I had,” said Burt Myers, “was hoping Jason would slip and I could capitalize on it. He didn’t, and I finished second.”
The Myers brothers one-and-two finish was a welcome Father’s Day gift for the patriarch and former Modified racer, Gary Myers. “I’ve always said if I can’t win, I want Jason to,” said Burt Myers. “To win first and second on Father’s day kinda takes some of the sting away of not being able to win.”
The “Madhouse Scramble” sent John Smith of Mount Airy to the pole for the start of the second race, with Joseph “Bobo” Brown of Winston-Salem starting in second. Smith jumped out into the lead. Joseph Brown gave him a few nudges, particularly in a harrowing last lap encounter with lapped traffic, but Smith held on to grab his first win of the season.
“I knew after the first race we had a good car if we could just get up there. And we proved it. The car has been running well,” said Smith, who was piloting the iconic number 53 owned by former racer Melvin “Puddin’” Swisher. “There’s been a lot of good drivers in this car, and to add my name to the list of people who’ve won in it – it’s a pretty good feeling.”
In the Farm Bureau Insurance Sportsman Series, Jordan Fleming of Mount Airy dominated in the first 20-lap race, taking his first win of the season. In the second race, Robbie Brewer of Winston-Salem seemed on his way to winning his fourth race of 2015. But Michael Adams of Yadkinville pressured Brewer’s rear bumper for lap after lap, eventually making a move to the inside to grab the lead and the win.
Derrick Rice of Kernersville claimed the checkered for the Q104.1 New Country Street Stock Series after dodging a few collisions. In the McDowell Heating & Air Stadium Stock Series, Chuck Wall of Lexington and Stephen Sanders of Midway each won in a 15-lapper.
The 109 U-Pull-It Skid Race at the end of the night belonged to Matt Smith of King. Smith is a well-known motorcycle racer – the 2007 and 2013 NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle Champ – who showed that he also had some skills driving a skid plate car around a quarter mile track.