A ninth place finish in the NASCAR Modified Tour Mohegan Sun 100 on Sept. 20 proved to be a gut punch of series points leader Austin Beers.
On Saturday the Northampton, Pa. driver showed he has the mettle to rebound when all seems lost.
Beers responded to the disappointing day in Loudon by grabbing his first career victory at Riverhead Raceway.
Beers went by Justin Bonsignore for the lead on lap 219 and never trailed again on the way to victory in the NASCAR Modified Tour Eddie Partridge 256 Saturday at Riverhead.
“We struggled really bad at New Hampshire, and I lost a lot of confidence in myself,” Beers said. “This team just had a bad ass race car. We kind of struggled in practice there, but they did a hell of a job working on it. We were able to get the car to rotate in the center really good there throughout that last long run and were able to pick off [Bonsignore].”
It was the second victory of the season for Beers and his fifth overall on the NASCAR Modified Tour.
Beers came into the event with seven point lead over second place Bonsignore in the series standings. Beers extended that lead to 13 points with two events remaining. The series runs the Sunoco World Series 150 at Thompson on Oct. 12 and the Virginia Is For Racing Lovers 200 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway on Oct. 28.
“This is big,” Beers said. “[Riverhead] is a track where we’ve kind of struggled, but we’ve had good runs here and bad runs here. This gives us confidence going into Thompson and pads the points lead a little bit there. We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing. We’ve been consistent all year, and this win is going to help us.”
Ron Silk of Norwalk was second and Bonsignore, of Holtsville, N.Y., third
“You always want to win, especially at home,” Bonsignore said. “Congrats to Austin, they executed really well and probably had the best car throughout the entire race.”
Beyond the top battle in the standings between Beers and four-time series champion Bonsignore, Craig Lutz sits third in the standings, 31 points off the lead. Matt Hirschman is fourth, 43 points back, and Patrick Emerling is fifth, 45 points behind Beers.
Beers led a race high 141 laps at Riverhead.
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