Unmuffled Highlights From Melissa Fifield, Burt Myers And Andrew Molleur

After six seasons on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, Melissa Fifield doesn’t expect to be going anywhere else anytime soon. 

Fifield talked extensively on the Unmuffled podcast this week about her racing career, her business away from the track and dealing with critics. 

“I’m going to continue racing with the series for many many years to come,” Fifield said. “I own the team and run every part of it, along with driving. I’m just trying to build it up each year and getting new marketing partners. There were many weeks this year with getting the [car] dealership started and losing some funding that I wasn’t sure if I would have enough money to put diesel in our truck. … Toward the end of this I got a partnership with Fury and Tony Eury Jr. I think if we can gain some more marketing partners and allow the team to grow I think there’s a platform there to expand and become a competitive race team.” 

When it comes to being a target for social media negativity Fifield said: “I’ve never had anybody make a comment at a pit party or off the track or anything there. Everybody kind of just has the courage to say what they want on the computer, but they’ll never say it to your face. … People don’t have the courage to say something.” 

Also on the topic of negativity targeted toward her Fifield said: “I think you have some old school people out there that don’t really believe in having a woman in a male dominated sport. So I certainly think I take a lot of the brunt of it when I know there’s other competitors that are in the same ballpark as us. But I think those people are never going to change. It’s kind of the way it is.” 

Coming off his third Tour Type Modified feature victory at the North-South Shootout on Saturday, Burt Myers had this to say about his the North vs. South rivalry: “You guys – I don’t mean this negative – but you guys think more of the North-South rivalry than we do. Back when it first started, whenever you had the Southern Tour and the Northern Tour and back in the early days of the North-South Shootouts, it was a North vs. South. And growing up we kind of felt it was a North vs. South. But me personally – I can’t speak for some of the other Southern guys – but me personally I’ve been able to go up North and race against a lot of those guys. And being a two-time winner of the event when it was at [Concord Speedway], I think that I gained some respect from some of those guys.” 

On making a run at a Whelen Modified Tour championship, Myers said: “If somebody popped up and said ‘Here’s a bag of cash, run for the [Whelen Modified Tour] championship, that would be a different story. But to live the lifestyle that I live and be able to maintain racing for a living and trying to juggle finances, I have to be at Bowman Gray Stadium.” 

In May Andrew Molleur became the youngest winner of an SK Modified in the history of Stafford Speedway and went on to finish ninth in the standings and win the division’s Rookie of the Year title. On his season at Stafford Molleur said: “I’m happy we ended up with the win. I wasn’t expecting that for sure. I don’t really think anyone was. But I feel like that we kind of just fell off the face of the earth toward the end of the season unfortunately. I just feel like we kind of missed something and kept trying and trying and trying. Everyone worked so hard all season long and we just couldn’t find what we were looking for those last five, six, seven races. We just didn’t have the results that I wished we’d have.” 

To hear plenty more from Fifield, Myers and Molleur listen to Unmuffled Episode 63 by signing up for our RaceDayCT Insiders program through Patreon. Your support helps ensure that professional coverage of short track racing. Patreon allows readers to make small monthly contributions to RaceDayCT that support the ongoing coverage of short track racing. Your pledge comes with exclusive access to all Unmuffled podcasts and Unmuffled Quickcasts.