Craig Lutz Excited For Speedbowl Homecoming With Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series 

It’s a natural occurrence for those around short track racing in the Northeast to think a native to Long Island must call Riverhead Raceway home. 

For Miller Place, N.Y. driver Craig Lutz, when it comes to talking about his home track in Modified racing, it means talking about a place across Long Island Sound from Riverhead. 

Lutz got his start racing in SK Modifieds at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl in 2013. 

Lutz will run his first race at the track since 2016 in the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series Belltown Motors/Fowler’s Auto Wrecking 100 presented by CBYD 811 on Aug. 6. Lutz will run in the event for longtime team owner Jimmy Paige. 

“Basically the the Speedbowl when I first started racing Modifieds, that was my home,” Lutz said. “We went there for three years. Three seasons we headed there to race every week. Having a big race like the Tri-Track is putting on is just awesome. It feels great for me to get the chance to be in that, especially to do it for a guy like Jimmy.” 

Lutz has two SK Modified victories at the Speedbowl, scoring one in 2014 and one in 2015. 

The last time Lutz ran at the track was in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event at the track on May 14, 2016. He finished 11th in the race. 

As of Saturday Lutz was one of 40 drivers entered for the Aug. 6 event at the Speedbowl. At this point it would mark the second highest car count for a Tour Type Modified event in the Northeast in 2022, second only to the 41 cars for the NAPA Spring Sizzler in April at Stafford Speedway. It means the possibility that 10 or more entries might not make the feature event. 

“It’s a totally different kind of strategy you have to have,” said Lutz, who competes full-time on the Whelen Modified Tour for team owner Danny Watts Jr. “Hopefully you get a good starting spot in your heat and you don’t have to make the show through a [consolation heat]. It’s just a whole different strategy at events like that and just puts a whole more pressure on everybody just to make the race let alone worrying about running up front and competing. I think there’s going to be a lot of cars. The Speedbowl has always been one of those places that everyone loves to run. To have a big race like it’s going to be, you know it’s going to be stout field.”