Spotlight On: Myers Adds to Family Legacy with Fourth Bowman Gray Title
Whelen Southern Mod Tour regular wraps up weekly series crown
Burt Myers extended the heritage of the single most-enduring family name in competition at NASCAR’s longest-running short track with his fourth career track championship there.
Myers, 34, of Walnut Cove, N.C., won the 2010 Bill Plemmons RV World Modified Division track championship at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C., Saturday night, August 21.
The NASCAR Whelen All American Series title capped a busy four-race week for Myers, and he said that all the racing helped him cope with any anxieties he might have felt about last weekend’s final race of his track championship chase.
“Going over to race (in the Wednesday night combined NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event) at Bristol Motor Speedway ended up being what I needed between the last two Bowman Gray race nights,” Myers said. “It’s a whole different mindset racing over there.”
Bowman Gray is a flat .250-mile paved oval, while the Bristol track is a .533-mile concrete track that features compound banking of up to 30 degrees, just shy of Daytona’s 31-degree banking.
“The difference in racing at Bowman Gray and Bristol in Modifieds is like the difference between the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing at Martinsville and Daytona. It’s still racing, but it’s completely different racing.
“The G-forces pushing you down in the seat of your car and the speed and having 36 cars out there with you … it was the most fun I’ve ever had in a race car,” Myers said.
After finishing seventh and sixth (to Loftin’s ninth and second) in 25-lap features at Bowman Gray on August 14, Myers switched horses, jumping into his Philip Smith-owned NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour car for the combined Modified tours’ August 18 event at Bristol Motor Speedway. Myers qualified 25th and produced a 11th-place finish overall finish. He finished second among Southern Modified Tour drivers and is fifth in the standings with four races remaining.
The Bristol race gave Myers a break from the talk and the thoughts of Saturday night’s finale at Bowman Gray.
“People were talking all week about how we had the Bowman Gray championship in the bag, and I’m thinking its Bowman Gray. Nothing is ever in the bag over there,” Myers said.
Back home at the Stadium Saturday, Myers raced conservatively in the track’s season-ending Carolina Farm Credit 150, finished 10th, and won the track championship by 24 points over Brian Loftin, who won the race. Loftin entered the event with a 56-point deficit. It wouldn’t have taken much Myers misfortune for luck to have swung in Loftin’s direction.
Myers finished his fourth Bowman Gray Modified season with 19 starts, five wins, 9 top-fives and 18 top-10s. He currently leads the NASCAR North Carolina state points and is ranked 14th in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series national standings. While Bowman Gray’s season is complete, the deadline for races to count toward the NASCAR national and state standings is Sunday, Sept. 19.
Myers 2010 title comes nearly 60 years after his great uncle, Billy Myers, won the family’s first championship in 1951. He also won track titles in 1953 and 1955. His brother, Bobby, won the title in 1952. Burt’s fourth title brings the family Modified total to eight. In addition, Jason Myers also has a NASCAR Street Stock title at Bowman Gray in 2001.
Burt’s five feature wins this year, which also brought his career win total at the track to 44, also bring the family’s Modified feature win total to 129. His father, Gary, has 38 wins; Billy, 22; Bobby 16; and younger brother Jason, 9.
Burt Myers started racing at age 17. He was 23 when he won his first Bowman Gray Modified championship and became the youngest driver to become champion, eclipsing the record of 25, set by Bobby Myers in 1952.
In 2009, Burt Myers was the track’s leading Modified feature winner with seven, but finished second to Tim Brown by 40 points for the championship. Brown and retired driver Ralph Brinkley are tied as the track’s leading all-time Modified championship winners, with eight.
Burt Myers said there were two factors that played out differently in 2010 than in 2009: mechanical gremlins and horsepower.
“That’s the difference,” Myers said. “Three or four times last year we had breakage or a malfunction of some kind and this year, we didn’t have those problems.”
The team, owned by his dad, Gary Myers, also switched over to Roush-Yates built engines midway through 2009, which the driver said made the difference over a full season this year.
“They don’t make just good horsepower,” Burt Myers said. “Our engine came out of the same shop that builds engines for NASCAR Nationwide Series teams. They have a different work station that specializes in every step of building engines. They build reliable, strong engines.”
In addition to Roush-Yates Racing Engines, sponsors on the No. 1 Ford include Capital Bank and Patterson’s Brand. The team uses a Troyer chassis.
Contrary to the perception of bitter rivalries among Modified drivers at the track – a perception magnified by the 2009 television taping of the single-season “Madhouse” – there is camaraderie among many Bowman Gray drivers.
“When we’re on the track, we try to keep our noses clean, take care of our equipment and try to avoid confrontations,” Myers said. While stuff happens at times, Myers says many of his fellow drivers are “as good of friends as you can have” outside their race cars.
The TV program was not picked up this year, but it brought lots of interest in Modified racing, Myers said.
“ ‘Madhouse’ brought notoriety to Modified racing and Bowman Gray Stadium,” Myers said. “This is what we do here and it’s been this way since it started. People have tried to explain it, but ‘Madhouse’ showed how exciting our racing is.
“Our race nights start on time and finish on time, and we’re well known for competition,” Myers said. “It made for great TV. We’re most proud of the recognition it brought to Modified racing.”
Sources: Paul Schaefer/NASCAR PR