Brew Master: Austin Beers Tops NASCAR Modified Tour At Lancaster For Third Consecutive Year 

When it comes to brewed hops in a drinkable form, Milwaukee is known in this country as the Land of Beers. But when it comes to NASCAR Modified Tour racing, the Land of Beers is clearly Lancaster Motorplex. 

Austin Beers controlled the final third of the event on the way to victory in the NASCAR Modified Tour Nu-Way Auto Parts 150 at Lancaster Motorplex. 

It was the third consecutive year that Beers has won the division’s annual event at Lancaster. 

“I just can’t believe it,” Beers said. “So thankful to get it, the three-peat. I was kind of tired of hearing, back-to-back, it put a lot of pressure on me, but this three-peat is pretty damn cool.” 

It was the first victory of the season for Beers and his fourth overall on the NASCAR Modified Tour. Beers started ninth in the 20-car field.

“When that caution came with 49 [laps] to go and Patrick [Emerling] was kind of pushing me around the race track I was like ‘Man we have no shot’,” Beers said. “But wow. I was on the edge every single lap, just tried not to give up anything. You have the best in the business behind you. You had Justin Bonsignore, Patrick Emerling, Matt [Hirschman] was there too.” 

Beers, of Northampton, Pa. was the seventh different winner in seven series events this season. The last time the NASCAR Modified Tour started a season with seven consecutive different winners was 1999. Beers joined Emerling, Ron Silk, Craig Lutz, Matt Hirschman, Justin Bonsignore and Kyle Bonsignore as winners this season. 

Emerling, of Orchard Park, N.Y., was second. 

“This is one we really really wanted to win,” Emerling said. “Home track. I think we were the car to beat.”

Matt Hirschman of Northampton, Pa. was third. 

“Certainly not a bad car, but not quite a winning car,” Hirschman said. 

Beers, who came into the event in second in the standings, one point behind Justin Bonsignore, left the track atop the standings, holding a 10-point advantage over Justin Bonsignore, who was eighth.

Hirschman won the pole for the event and controlled at the front in the early stages. The first caution of the event flew on lap lap 21 for the spinning car of John-Michael Shenette. 

After the lap 27 restart Hirschman led a parade green flag run for about 35 laps. On lap 63 Emerling found a lane under Hirschman through turn two and became the second leader of the event. 

The second caution of the event flew on lap 73 for the spinning car of Lutz off of turn four. The caution sent most of the leaders to pit road. 

The race restart with Kyle Bonsignore leading, Beers in second and Stephen Kopcik in third. 

On the restart it was Kyle Bonsignore controlling at the front. 

Caution returned on lap 93 for the spinning car of Luke Baldwin. With Kyle Bonsignore going to the pits under caution, Beers restarted in the lead with Kopcik in second. Beers got the jump on the restart with Kopcik falling to fifth soon after the green flag returned. 

Caution was back out on lap 102 when Tommy Catalano spun off of turn two. With Emerling to his outside, Beers controlled on the lap 106 restart and Emerling got stuck in the outside lane. 

With 12 laps left Emerling went by Justin Bonsignore for second. Ahead of him Beers held about a one second lead at the front. Emerling closed within a half a second with five laps remaining, but couldn’t get close enough to challenge Beers over the closing laps. 

“That was a little bit of an inopportune caution,” Emerling said. “We just got freight trained up top there. Back the time I was able to work back by [Hirschman] and [Justin Bonsignore] we were just a little bit too used up at that point. We could get to [Beers], but right at the end, we just had to use up a little bit too much.” 

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