STAFFORD – Carson Loftin’s introduction to feature racing at Stafford Speedway lasted only five laps on Friday due to heavy rains arriving during the running of the Casella Waste Open Modified 80.
The 16-year old SMART Modified phenom from Winston-Salem, N.C. is hoping plans will work out for a return to Stafford next Friday to finish what he started.
Loftin, who has won five of the first seven SMART Modified Tour events this season, was running his first event Friday in the Northeast. After starting 20th, he was in 13th place at the time the race was stopped.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Loftin said as his team was loading up in the pits readying for the return trip to North Carolina. “My grandpa gave us a deal to do whatever we think is best. We’ll find out. We’re going to get everything dry and loaded and we’ll go from there.
“It was really cool to be here. Stafford does a really good job with all the management and all the media stuff. It was really cool to be a part of it. Stafford is definitely one of my favorite tracks now. I’m looking forward to hopefully coming back here.”
The Stafford event is one of two Northeast events Loftin has planned for June. He has a guaranteed starting spot for the $20,000 to win Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series Open Wheel Wednesday event on June 26 at Seekonk (Mass.) Speedway.
After having an issue in his heat race, Loftin started last in the 20-car field for the Open Modified 80. He was up to 13th after five laps. With the race under caution for a lap six incident, heavy rains came and brought the night to an end at Stafford.
“In practice we were third and 10th so I felt like we had a pretty good car in practice and the heat race we really missed it,” Loftin said. “When the track changed we missed it and then I got up to third and the car popped out of gear going into [turn] three. That was definitely a setback. Started shotgun on the field and got up 12th in the first five laps and then rain came. Hopefully we’ll be a back next Friday.”
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