The hearty fans that poor into Thunder Road International Speedbowl for nearly every event at the historic venue, don’t get the chance to see all that many Modified events.
On Sunday the drivers of the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series made sure those fans would get to see a dramatic show on the rare appearance of Modifieds at the Barre, Vt. bullring.
After a more than 20 lap battle at the front of the field, Austin Beers passed Matt Swanson for the lead on lap 99 and held on to win the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series Granite City 100 Sunday at Thunder Road.
It was the first career Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series victory for Beers, of Northampton, Pa. Beers was making his 12th career start with the series.
“That was a hell of a race,” Beers said. “That was fun. It shows you that, we didn’t have a great car count here tonight, but it didn’t matter, we put on a show for the fans and that’s what really matters.”
Swanson, of Acton, Mass., held on for second and George Bessette Jr. of Danbury was third.
Pole-sitter Ronnie Williams controlled the pace at the start, getting a quick jump on Teddy Hodgdon in the opening laps.
By lap 10 Williams and Hodgdon had broken away from third place running Jon McKennedy.
On lap 15 Hodgdon made a diving move under Williams into turn three and came off turn four with the lead. Soon after, Beers got under McKennedy for third place with Stephen Kopcik following to fourth and Swanson to fifth.
Beers found a lane under Williams to move to second on lap 27, with Kopcik following into third place.
Hodgdon held a 1.2 second lead over Beers on lap 34 while working lapped traffic. In the midst of lapped traffic, Kopcik went by Beers for second on lap 39 and quickly got to the bumper of Hodgdon.
The first caution of the event flew on lap 46 when the lapped car of Jeffrey Battle spun in turn one, collecting the eighth place running car of Woody Pitkat.
Under caution, third place Beers, fifth place Williams and sixth place McKennedy went to pit road.
Kopcik used the outside lane on the lap 46 restart to move past Hodgdon for the lead, while behind the leaders Swanson made the jump to third.
The second caution of the event flew on lap 62 for debris.
On the lap 62 restart second place running Hodgdon held the outside lane with Kopcik for the restart. As the pair came off of turn two, Kopcik went up the track and put Hodgdon into the outside wall, ripping the right front off of the Hodgdon ride. An angry Hodgdon expressed his displeasure to Kopcik as Kopcik came around the track under caution. Kopcik was penalized by series officials for not maintaining his line. The penalty dropped Kopcik to 12th place in the field.
The penalty setup a front row of Swanson and Beers for the lap 62 restart. On the restart Swanson was able to control the pace out front, but Beers wasn’t letting him get away.
On lap 78 Beers got under Swanson, but Swanson deftly fought off the attack. From lap 80 to lap 96 Beers tried every way to get by Swanson, but Swanson was up to defending every move until caution flew for the spinning car of Tyler Hines on lap 97.
On the lap 97 restart Swanson, who had never pitted for a tire, controlled initially. On lap 99 Beers found the lane under Swanson through turns one and two and grabbed the top spot away from Swanson.
“It was huge,” Beers said of the caution to set up the late restart. “[Swanson] was struggling a lot there and I was all over him for a long time. I was just trying to do it as clean as I could. He has a lot of experience here and this is my second race ever here so. I was just trying to find a way to set him up and I knew my only shot was into [turn] three because it’s so hard to pass here out of [turn] four. This car was just unbelievable.
“I’m glad we made the pit stop. Good call by my dad to get that right rear [tire] and we came through the field.”
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