Southern Comfort: Craig Lutz Wins NASCAR Mod Tour Virginia Is For Racing Lovers 150 At Richmond 

Heading south with the NASCAR Modified Tour has been a comfort for Craig Lutz this season.

On May 18 Lutz scored his first victory of the 2025 at North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Wilkesboro, N.C. 

Thursday Lutz kept the Southern streak rolling. 

Lutz passed Austin Beers on lap 143 and went on to win the NASCAR Modified Tour Virginia Is For Racing Lovers 150 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway. 

“We’ve been struggling the last couple [races] but we unloaded a good car and that’s a huge part,” Lutz said. “I was confident all day. First part of the race was just trying to manage knowing that there wasn’t going to be too many cautions here. 

“Coming in early to take those tires ultimately put us in the position where we were. We took our final [tire] change set. Fired off a little tight, [the leaders] guys got away from me, but it started coming in when it mattered. You never give up. You just keep fighting to the end.” 

It was the second victory of the season for Lutz, of Miller Place, N,Y., and the sixth of his career on the NASCAR Modified Tour. It was the second event this season that Lutz has won on a companion weekend with NASCAR’s national divisions. The North Wilkesboro event was run as an undercard to the NASCAR Cup Series All-Star race at North Wilkesboro.

“I think it’s huge,” Lutz said. “To run with the [NASCAR national series’] is phenomenal. Usually the tracks we go to we’re the main show. To go to a venue like this, it’s huge for us. The … four races that we run at bigger tracks is definitely the one’s everyone circles for trying to win and two win the last two is incredible.”

Beers, of Northampton, Pa. was second and Patrick Emerling of Orchard Park, N.Y. was third. Both Beers and Emerling were down a lap at points during the event. 

“We had a really good [lap 110] restart, I was able to go from fifth to first there and lead for a while,” Beers said. “… We just tightened up over in [turns] three and four and that kind of killed our tires. Toward the end I lost drive and I knew [Lutz] was coming. He was hunting me like a shark. A good day for us, good points day.” 

Emerling recovered from a spin that put him down a lap, but earned a lucky dog free pass to make the late rally happen. 

“That was just a really interesting one,” Emerling said. “We’re pretty good at coming from the back. Super strange. We just, all the top three cars running here were on the same strategy. We all had the same game plan. Who would have thought. This race usually doesn’t run … after that first caution, it normally doesn’t run like that. We got caught with our pants down out there. We had to really battle back.” 

In a strange twist for the series, just six of the 24-cars in the field were on the lead lap at the finish. 

Beers, who came into the event with a five-point lead over Justin Bonsignore atop the standings, extended that lead to 10 points with five events remaining this season. Bonsignore was seventh, the first car one lap down on Thursday. Emerling remained third in the standings, now 22 points behind Beers. Lutz climbed from fifth in the standings to a tie for fourth in the standings with Matt Hirschman. Lutz and Hirschman sit 30 points behind Beers.

Pole-winner Bonsignore controlled at the green flag, but Ryan Preece quickly began giving Bonsignore fits at the front. 

Beers moved by Preece for second on lap nine. Emerling dropped Preece to third on lap 12. 

By lap 17 Beers was stalking all over the bumper of Bonsignore at the front of the field. 

Beers finally found his way by Bonsignore for the lead on lap 25. Caution flew on the next lap for the spinning car of Tommy Catalano off of turn four. Emerling was in third at the time of the caution, Preece in fourth, Lutz in fifth and Matt Hirschman in sixth. 

Nearly the entire field headed to pit road under caution. Some teams pitted once for fuel and some pitted twice for fuel and tire changes. 

Danny Bohn stayed out and assumed the lead with Beers restarting second, Bonsignore third and Emerling fourth. 

On the restart Beers was able to overtake Bohn for the lead with Bonsignore following to second and Emerling to third.

After restarting eighth, Trevor Catalano clawed his way quickly into the top-five and passed Bonsignore for second on lap 43. Three laps later Trevor Catalano went by Beers for the lead. Ryan Newman followed up through to second with Craig Lutz moving to third. 

On lap 56 Lutz got under Newman to move into second. By then Trevor Catalano had opened up a 1.2 second lead on the field. 

By lap 75 Trevor Catalano had opened up 1.7 second lead over second place Lutz, with Newman still running fourth and Corey LaJoie in fifth with 12 of the 24 cars in the field remaining on the lead lap. 

On lap 81 Trevor Catalano put 10th place Emerling and ninth place Bonsignore down a lap. On lap 83 eighth place Beers went down a lap to Trevor Catalano.

Caution flew on lap 90 for the spinning car of Emerling on the backstretch. At the time of the caution six cars, were on the lead lap with Trevor Catalano leading, Lutz in second, Newman in third, Lajoie in fourth, Stephen Kopcik in fifth and Hirschman in sixth. Seventh place running Beers earned the lucky dog to get back on the lead lap. 

Trevor Catalano’s team had issues on pit road. After the pit stops, Newman assumed the lead with Lutz in second, Hirschman in third, Lajoie in fourth and Trevor Catalano in fifth. 

Coming to the green flag for the restart, Newman got hit from behind by Corey LaJoie, which caused Newman’s car to jerk right and into the wall outside wall.  

The quick caution allowed seventh place running Emerling to get the lucky dog free pass back onto the lead lap. The restart chaos moved Lutz to the lead, Hirschman to second, Trevor Catalano to third, Lajoie to fourth and Beers to fifth. 

On the restart Lutz got the jump, but it was Beers rocketing from fifth to second at the green. Beers went to the lead by Lutz the next lap with Trevor Catalano following to second. 

On lap 117 Lutz went by Trevor Catalano for second. Ahead of them Beers had opened up a 1.1 second lead. 

By lap 133 Lutz had cut Beers’ lead down to three quarters of a second with Emerling running third, two seconds behind Beers. 

The Beers lead over Lutz was down to one-third of a second on lap 140. 

Lutz found Beers’ bumper by lap 142. On lap 143 Lutz went to the low lane under Beers and wrestled the lead away off of turn four. Over the final six laps Lutz was able to edge away from Beers. 

“Seeing the gap close and knowing that you have a better car is awesome,” Lutz said. “As a driver that’s the best feeling ever, especially in the closing laps.”

VIDEO: Craig Lutz Postrace Press Conference At Richmond Raceway