SOUTH BOSTON, Va. – Burt Myers has 156 career Modified victories. He’s won more track championships than you have fingers. But there is a blank spot on his resume.

He’s never won at South Boston Speedway in at least a dozen tries. He’ll get another shot this Saturday afternoon in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour 150/Late Model Stock Twin 75s.

“I’ve been blessed with a lot of success in the Modifieds, especially in the South, but South Boston is one of the southern tracks where I haven’t won,” said Myers, who remembers watching his father Gary Myers race on the historic Virginia track as a child before he raced there for the first time in the mid-1990s.

“I’ve never won there, and it bothers me. It would be nice if I could check that box. With this team, we feel like we are the little engine that could.”

Myers drives selected NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour events for Eddie Harvey Racing. He finished seventh in the season-opener at Myrtle Beach Speedway a couple of weeks ago and feels his team has momentum headed into this weekend’s event.

“If I didn’t think I could win, I wouldn’t be there,” Myers said of the EHR team, which used to be based in New Jersey and ran the entire NWMT schedule. “When Eddie moved South, he won two southern tour (NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour) championships with George (Brunnhoelzl III) and Andy (Seuss).

“We absolutely have good equipment and this team has had good success at South Boston.”

Because the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour hasn’t visited South Boston in many years, Myers very well may be the only driver in the field with competitive laps on the .4-mile oval. He last raced there in 2016 in the old NASCAR Southern Modified Tour.

South Boston’s racing surface was repaved after the 2016 season, and after a test session at the track last week, he says it’s a totally different racing experience.

“It might have South Boston Speedway on the sign out front and on the walls, but it’s not the South Boston I’ve run,” Myers said after the test. “It’s one of the only times in my career I had to make myself come in because I was having so much fun.

“It’s super smooth and really grippy. The back stretch used to be kind of bumpy, but you don’t have any of that now. It’s going to be a great race.”

Speeds have increased greatly with the new surface, Myer said, and drivers are going to have to be up on the wheel.

“It’s still the same layout, but the way you can drive the track and be so aggressive now, it’s going to be different. The walls didn’t move, and the inside lines are going to be the same. The places you run and how close to the wall, I’m familiar with. But how you drive and how you race the track is totally different.

“It’s going to be reaction fast … people are going to have to react fast.”

Myers said perhaps the biggest takeaway from his test session is how important qualifying will be Saturday.

“Qualifying is going to be key. I think you want to be in the first five or six or the last five or six. That middle is going to be bad,” said Myers. “But if you’re too far back, the leaders are going to be on top of you pretty quick. We’re going to concentrate on qualifying toward the front.”

The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour 150 on Saturday afternoon, March 30, will feature the 150-lap Modified race and a pair of 75-lap Late Model Stock races.

Advance adult general admission tickets are $10 each and will be available until 5 p.m. on Friday March 29 by stopping in South Boston Speedway’s office or calling 877.440.1540. Adult general admission tickets on race day will be $15. Children 12-and-under will be admitted free with a paying adult.

Grandstands open at 11:30 a.m. on March 30 with an autograph session at 1 p.m. and the first race of the day starting at 2 p.m.

Source/Photo Credit: South Boston Speedway