ALTAMAHAW, N.C. — Audio and report by Race Chaser Online Managing Editor Jacob Seelman — Brewer Racing photo —
The most dominant driver in KOMA Unwind Modified Madness Series competition so far in 2015 was knocked back a spot in Saturday evening’s pole qualifying for the Autism Smiles LLC 125 at Ace Speedway.
Zach Brewer, driving the Scott’s Custom Cabinets No. 31 modified, overhauled defending series champion and current points leader Burt Myers late in the qualifying session with a lap of 14.717 seconds (97.846 mph) to claim the top starting spot for the 125-lap feature event and the Sunoco Pole Award, surprising the field — and himself.
“It was a really good lap,” Brewer smiled. “I think we’ll be pretty good today. We’ve got a lot of forward bite in the car and we’ve been pretty consistent on old tires after not getting a practice set earlier today. We went aggressive on air pressures for qualifying and we hit on something pretty good — maybe even a little better than we expected — so we’ll just see what happens tonight.”
“125 laps is a long race, [it’s] a lot of time for things to play out.”
Myers’ lap of 14.724 seconds (97.800 mph) — as the fourth car to take time in qualifying — was good enough to hold on for the second starting spot, placing him on the outside of the front row and in prime position to fight for his second series victory of the 2015 season.
“We didn’t put on any new tires in practice to try and dial the car in on stickers, and I think that hurt us just a bit,” Myers explained. “It’s still a front row starting spot though, and we’ll go out in the race tonight and see what we can do.”
“We found some rear end problems [after the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour race] at Langley that we spent all the way up until last night fixing, so we hope we’ve got those resolved and now it’s all about here at Ace Speedway tonight.”
Young gun Spencer Davis qualified third for the Hillbilly Racing team at a clip of 14.751 seconds (97.621 mph), with Chris Pastryak and Josh Nichols rounding out the top five on the starting grid.
Former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series star Jeremy Mayfield put out the fifth-fastest lap (15.166 / 94.949) of the cars that had qualified when he went out on the speedway, but his position trailed off slightly by the time the qualifying session ended. Mayfield will roll off ninth on the grid tonight.
The Autism Smiles LLC 125 will go green at approximately 8:45 p.m. Eastern time tonight, with live updates on our Twitter page, @RaceChaserNews.
Audio with fast qualifier Zach Brewer:
RESULTS: KOMA Unwind Modified Madness Series Qualifying; Ace Speedway; April 18, 2015
- #31 – Zach Brewer, 14.717
- #1 – Burt Myers, 14.724
- #79 – Spencer Davis, 14.751
- #5CT – Chris Pastryak, 14.781
- #34 – Josh Nichols, 14.808
- #4 – Jason Myers, 14.817
- #5 – Tom Buzze, 14.927
- #08 – Dan Speeney, 14.954
- #J2 – Jeremy Mayfield, 15.166
- #12 – Mike Norman, 15.203
- #98 – Gary Putnam, 15.344
- #22 – Jimmy Wallace, 15.405
- #24 – Buddy Ellis, 15.443
- #44 – Daniel Beason, 15.790
- #16 – Don Johnson, 16.421
- #65 – Bob Summers, 17.767
