In 2024 on the NASCAR Modified Tour, the first year Fleetworks No. 1 team with driver Patrick Emerling proved to be the biggest surprise of the season.
At the start of the season nobody was quite sure what to expect from the team, led by former series championship crew chief Dale Hedquist. Emerling stuck around near the top of the standings with six top-four finishes in the first nine events of the season and then won three of the final seven races of the season. Emerling ended up third in the series standings.
This year there’s no doubt about what the team can do and on Saturday Emerling showed they’re ready to battle for the series title.
Emerling drove away from Craig Lutz on a green-white-checkered restart to win the Modified Tour New Smyrna Beach Area Visitors Bureau 200 at New Smyrna (Fla.) Speedway.
After qualifying 10th Emerling was forced to start last in the 31-car field due to a motor issue before the feature.
“This wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for Rich Gautreau and my family and this awesome crew right here,” Emerling said. “I think we have the best crew in the garage, best team, best of everything. … This is incredible. This is what we expected to do. We made it a little harder on ourselves. We had a little motor issue and we started dead last today. … I’ve won races like that before in this series. It just puts you on a different schedule and different pit cycle to get you there.”
It was the eighth career Modified Tour victory for Emerling, of Orchard Park, N.Y.
“We were so dialed. The [No. 1] car again is the fastest car on the race track. These are the fastest cars I’ve ever driven in my life. We can just get out there and do our thing. Just everyone has to execute and we’ll finish like this.
“Shout out to this team. This was incredible. I was tearing up for a second. It’s absolutely incredible. I’m so happy. First race of the season. I think we were the best team for the majority of the season last year and we’re just trying to pick up where we left off.”
Craig Lutz of Miller Place, N.Y. was second.
“This race is so tough, with 200 laps, there’s different tire strategies and fuel stops,” Lutz said. “It’s a whole team effort. The first two caution we got behind on track position so I didn’t know what was going to pan out here. But all my guys dug deep all day. We had good adjustments. My crew chief Doug Ogiejko did a great job, all my guys on their stops. We wanted this one bad for a fellow team member [Wayne Anastasia] that we lost [in the final event of the 2024 season] at Martinsville. This is our first race without him. We were trying like hell. [Emerling] had a great car, the best car won, but we gave it a fight.”
Justin Bonsignore of Holtsville, N.Y. rallied back from numerous issues to finish third. Bonsignore had a flat tire on lap 38 that led to a one-lap penalty for intentionally bringing out a caution. After getting back on the lead lap, he had a hard lick with the wall off of turn two on lap 95.
“Just a wild night,” Bonsignore said. “Tire went down like a half a lap into the restart. There’s really nothing you can do, you’ve just got to take that penalty. You’d be 4-5 laps down if you come down pit road [under green]. It was just a hard fought night after that. We didn’t get the Lucky Dog as quick as we had liked. Then off of [turn] two I just ran out of talent and knocked the fence down. That probably hurt us the most. That probably knocked the rear out of alignment pretty bad. Still fought back. We were struggling there at the end. Just loose on every set of tires after the flat.”
Pole-winner Luke Baldwin ended up fourth and Austin Beers was fifth.
With Baldwin out front, Beers in second and Bonsignore in third, the first caution flew on lap five for the spinning car of Jeremy Gerstner.
On the ensuing restart, sixth place running Stephen Kopcik got loose coming to the green then slammed into the side of Andrew Krause before spinning to bring the yellow right back out.
On the ensuing restart Baldwin was able to keep his hold on the top spot. Behind him Bonsignore was able to overtake Beers for second place.
The caution was back out on lap 19 for the spinning car of Jacob Lutz on the backstretch. Under caution Baldwin remained on track while a handful of leaders, including Bonsignore, Beers, Lutz and Matt Hirschman, pitted for fuel.
On the lap 25 restart it was Baldwin holding out front with Ryan Newman moving past Eric Goodale for second.
On lap 29, with cars checking up at mid-pack, the cars of Mark Stewart and Jacob Lutz made contact coming off of turn four and ended up stopped on the frontstretch to bring out the fourth caution.
The fifth caution of the event flew on lap 38 for the slowed car of Bonsignore who went to pit road under caution with a flat right front tire. Bonsignore was penalized one lap for purposely bringing out the caution.
The sixth caution of the event flew on lap 57 for the stopped car of Brian Sones. The numerous early cautions through the first quarter of the event continued a rash of odd scheduled pitting. The latest caution and pits ended up putting Hirschman and Ron Silk on the front row for the ensuing restart.
The seventh caution of the night flew on lap 69 for a four car wreck involving Eric Goodale, Chase Dowling, Tyler Barry and Frank Fleming.
On lap 86, Tyler Catalano and Trevor Catalano made contact on the backstretch, collecting Kyle Bonsignore and sending him into the wall to bring out the eighth caution of the event.
The ninth caution of the event flew on lap 95 when Justin Bonsignore got sideways off of turn two and slapped the wall followed by Gerstner spinning off the corner.
On lap 142, Hirschman’s car was smoking while running in eighth. Hirschman was black flagged multiple times for smoking just before the caution flew for the slowing Trevor Catalano. Hirschman went to the pits under caution for a tire change but was placed a lap down as a penalty.
With Beers leading, Craig Lutz in second and Emerling in third, the 11th caution of the event flew on lap 174 for the spinning car of Dave Sapienza.
On the lap 181 restart Beers spun the tires coming to the green, allowing Craig Lutz to move to the lead and Emerling to second. With 17 laps left Emerling made the move to get under Craig Lutz and take over the lead. Two laps later Justin Bonsignore got by Beers for third place.
With Emerling checked out from second place Craig Lutz, the 12th caution of the race flew on lap 196 for the lapped car of Chris Hatton who got in the way of a battle for fifth place and ended up hard into the turn three wall. The red flag was brought out for track clean up with 199 laps completed.
On the green-white-checkered restart it was Emerling getting the jump out front on second place Craig Lutz. Emerling quickly found breathing room, leaving Craig Lutz to hold off the charges of Justin Bonsignore and Beers. While Emerling cruised to the checkered, Baldwin got by Beers for fourth.
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Decent season opener, not too much stupid.
Nice recovery by the 51. The 51 had to be very good to get back near the top. 👀
The 1 was def fast. Nice win, everything worked out, little to no mistakes.
The finishing order is about as could be expected. Couple good cars faltered, most ended up as they will probably do so most of the season.
The 60 is looking weak. Had far better expectations.
Lutz, Dowling and Krause are going to be the ones to watch. Hope they can run the full schedule.
Perhaps a little surprised. The 16 team did have a reputation for getting around New Smyrna pretty good and the 51 was super hot at the end of last year. Hirschman is who he is, looked pretty feisty for a while before fading.
Bonsignor doing what he did seemed logical but does it say something about who they are in comparison to the rest of the field? Should the penalty been two or three laps down, the stopping deal a death sentence for the win? My Lord considering how abrasive that track is how’s a car come back from a lap down and be competitive at the end? Can’t put my finger on it but something’s askew. If that Massa team can pull that off on that track all they’ll have to do to win the championship is to avoid mechanical failures and not make mental errors.
Getting laps back for free tends to dull the effect of penalties a bit. I’m not saying go back to racing to the yellow because that was clearly too dangerous. I think making the penalized team ineligible for the lucky dog would be too harsh. Maybe the rule could be you have to earn the lucky dog twice before you get your penalty lap back.
What did I miss in race coverage? There were 2 hard wall hits in the last 5 laps that where hardly a mentioned. They at least mentioned the 1st driver got out of the car. In the wreck at the finish the driver could still be in that car. They never went back to see how he was did they? Anybody know are both drivers are Ok? But at least NASCAR got there pretty little stand out for the trophy and there flashing light gizmos.
Ken K,
Understand there were a couple of hard hits. I haven’t heard any updates or seen anything posted publicly. I’m pretty much at the mercy of NASCAR as far as reporting any sort of medical updates that aren’t formally made public by the individuals involved and NASCAR has not offered any sort of updates on these.
Stewart had a horrible grinding crash on the last lap, after contact with the 36…. Straight in …. Really hard hit , unless someone has a backup car he will be out this week..Big Money was on old tires the longest. With the oil leak he couldn’t overcome all the setbacks, But we all know he will be back on his Game tonight and the rest of the week…everyone walked away from the accidents…