Champion Car Owner: Eric Sanderson
Second Mod Tour Title For Veteran Team Owner
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Eric Sanderson has been having fun as a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour car owner for nearly two decades, so the 2013 season must have been a blast.
Sanderson’s No. 16 Flamingo Motorsports team registered four wins and 10 top-10 finishes in 14 races with Ryan Preece behind the wheel to take home a second Whelen Modified Tour title for the organization.
Sanderson, originally from Monson, Mass., got his first taste of auto racing as a teenager going to watch the races at Stafford (Conn.) Motor Speedway. It wasn’t long before Sanderson and a few friends decided to build a car and he entered Stafford’s All-American Sportsman division as a driver/owner in 1969.
Sanderson’s first modified experience came as a driver at Stafford soon thereafter, but he stepped away from the sport in 1975 to attend to other affairs. It wasn’t until 1994 when Sanderson learned that the son of one of his friends was racing weekly at the former Riverside Park Speedway in Agawam, Mass., that he decided to get back in the game. He joined the Whelen Modified Tour in 1995 with that friend’s son – Chris Kopec – behind the wheel of his new No. 16 team.
Sanderson’s outfit broke through for their first tour title in 2006 with Mike Stefanik as the driver. Seven years later Preece delivered the second.
“I don’t think there was necessarily anything comparable between the two championships,” Sanderson said. “I always say it’s not so much the good luck as it is avoiding the bad luck. That’s what we did in both of those championships – we avoided the back luck. We fielded a good car and we had very good drivers.”
Sanderson felt good about the team’s championship chances from the 2013 opener at Thompson (Conn.) Speedway. Then three wins in a row at Stafford, Waterford (Conn.) Speedbowl and Riverhead (N.Y.) Raceway solidified that feeling.
“I felt all along, right from Race 1, that we had a shot because we had a good car and a good driver,” Sanderson said. “But after that three wins in a row, I felt like we had a real good shot at this, that we had to just continue to do what we were doing and stay out of trouble.”
Sanderson counts a pair of come-from-behind wins as his fondest moments of the campaign.
“The first win at Stafford when the green flag hadn’t even come out yet and we got together with another car and flattened the tire. We had to put a new tire on it, then came from the back and won it. That was quite a moment there,” Sanderson said.
“Then the first Riverhead win, we got together with Donny Lia, touched the wall and got a flat tire. We went into the pits, changed the tire and came from the back to the front to win that one too.
“To come from the back to the front is just an incredible feeling to see that happen. Those are my two real favorite moments from the season.”
By day, Sanderson is the owner of two businesses based in Palmer, Mass.: Flamingo Motorsports, a dealer and service provider of ATVs, motorcycles and watercraft, and Sanderson-MacLeod, a manufacturer of brushes for cosmetic, medical and various other uses. On the weekends he enjoys his time at the race track, and is especially fond of his driver.
“Ryan is a great kid – well now he is 23 – but for someone his age, in my opinion, he is mature beyond his years,” Sanderson said. “He’s always smiling. His attitude is tremendous. He’s a lot of fun to be around at the race track, and to watch him race is a lot of fun as well.
“And let me add this – I really, truly hope he gets a shot to move up,” Sanderson said. “That would be bad for my team of course, but I don’t think like that at all. I really hope he gets an opportunity at the next level and I’ll do everything I can to support him in that.”
Preece has already stated that he plans to focus on a title defense with the No. 16 team in 2014, so the successful driver-owner combination figures to give it at least one more shot.
“Coming up will be my 20th season with the Whelen Modified Tour, and I’m having a lot of fun doing it,” Sanderson said.
Sanderson and his No. 16 East West Marine/Diversified Metals Ford team will get a chance to celebrate their 2013 accomplishments on Saturday, Dec. 14 as part of the NASCAR Night of Champions Touring Awards ceremony in the Crown Ballroom of the Charlotte (N.C) Convention Center inside the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Sources: Jason Cunningham/NASCAR WMT PR