Brown and Bohn Tangle; Myers Slips by to Win at Bowman Gray

With the Hayes Jewelers 200, the crown jewel for the Brad’s Golf Cars Modified Series, the opening race of the season at Bowman Gray is always filled with great spectacle.

That was no different Saturday night as Burt Myers, who bided his time behind the leaders for most of the 200-lap race, pulled ahead with 10 laps remaining to pick up the win, his 89^th in his storied career at Bowman Gray.

“It’s so many challenges. I about wrecked the field,” Myers said. “It was my fault. I just tried something different out there on the outside because I had to try something.”

Myers started fourth with Tim Brown on the pole and Danny Bohn just to Brown’s outside.

“I knew we had the fastest car, but Tim earned the pole, and he earned that right to be in that position,” Myers said. “We can roll the center so much better than him. If you just tie it down on the bottom, it’s hard to get by you. You just work it and you fall back, and you get back up, and you fall back again.”

Myers moved forward and backward throughout the race, and Brown, who led for the first 190 laps of a caution-filled race, was bumped by Bohn. Brown slipped to second and came from behind and gave a shot to Bohn. Brown and Bohn kept battling and Brown was pushed back to 10th.

“Danny knocked me out of the way,” Myers said. “When I hit him I lost traction. And I thought, ‘Well, I’ll let Danny see if he can work Tim a little bit. He moved Tim, and Tim moved him back. I saw it coming. I don’t know how close it was, but it was really close. I about got my right front, but once I saw clear racing it was all over.”

Bohn had no regrets about what happened with Brown.

“He was tight on the race car the last three or four laps, and obviously you cut the guy a break for a little bit,” Bohn said of Brown. “When it gets down to 15 to go you’ve got to go…And he just decided to wreck me into (turn) three. I knew it was coming.

“We ended up second that’s part of it.”

Bohn called out Brown after the race.

“I’m here to win,” Bohn said. “With no outside you’re not going to pass somebody on the restart. You’re not going to pass him on the outside. So, he was tight, moved him up, didn’t blast him too hard. Just moved him up out of the groove to go underneath him.

“He went down in (turn) three there and never lifted. It cost us the win. We ended up second. He’s the one that has to explain to his sponsor that he can’t win the race over here, not me.”

Meanwhile, Myers pushed ahead and dominated the final 10 laps.

“I don’t know if that’s ever happened to me here,” Myers said. “How long have I been racing here? You know. I think you never can presume what’s going to happen. You’ve just got to take it as it comes. I’ve always said you can’t make a plan because it changes on you, and then you’re not mentally prepared for it.

“So, you just keep an open mind, you sit in there and you drive the race car.”

With longer races like Saturday’s 200-lap race in the Modified Series, it takes patience and experience, something Myers has.

“Me and Tim have been racing each other a long time,” Myers said. “You know, I can tell by the way he was working his car, the way he was driving his car, the way he was warming his tires up on restarts.”

There were plenty of restarts in Saturday’s race. In fact, there were 15 cautions, the last of which came on lap 183.

“I’ve been watching that for 20-plus years,” Myers said. “So, I knew the kind of characteristics of what his car was doing and what he needed it to do. And so I tried to time it to where I could take advantage of that. But still being in the front and being in that position it just made it really hard to do anything with it.

“You know, this time we just took advantage of a situation that fell in our lap.”

For Myers, whose 2022 season was a down year by his standards as a 10-time champion, he didn’t win his first race last year until June 25. However, he still won four races.

“Whenever you can get the first one out of the way it kind of takes all the pressure off of you to keep going and keep winning, but next week’s another week. Our main focus next week is trying to put that thing on the pole and do what we did this week.”

Next week, there will be twin 25-lap races in the Modified Series, so Myers will have two chances to pick up his 90^th win.

“Maybe we’ll get 90 next week,” he said.

In the 40-lap McDowell Heating & Air Sportsman Series, Chase Robertson followed his three wins from last season with a win in the opener Saturday night.

And Robertson, who is a student at Oak Grove High School in Midway, went straight from Victory Lane to his high school prom at the Millennium Center in Winston-Salem.

Robertson outlasted Nate Gregg, who moved up from the Law Offices of John Barrow Street Stock Series, and Riley Neal.

“I’ve got to leave this and go,” Robertson said.

Asked by Randy Pulliam, the track announcer, whether he was going to take his race car with him to the prom, Robertson said, “I wish, but she needs to cool down.”

There were six cautions during the race, but Robertson, who led for most of the race, took charge on the green-white finish to defeat Gregg.

“We had a phenomenal car. It’s been good since it came off the trailer,” Robertson said. “And Dylan Ward and Kevin — we haven’t touched a bolt on this dang thing since it came out of the shop, and it showed. I just want to thank Dylan and Kevin, my dad and my crew. Without them I could not do anything, and my mom.”

In the Law Offices of John Barrow Street Stock Series, Brad Lewis won.. Christian Joyce was second, Cody Gum was third, Chase Lewis was fourth, and Jordan Atkins was fifth.

In the first 15-lap race in the Q104.1 Stadium Stock Series, Isaac Harris picked up the win, just ahead of Stephen Sanders. Austin Cates was third, Kenny Dixon was fourth, and Chuck Wall was fifth.

Blaine Curry won the second 15-lap Stadium Stock race, followed by Robert Strmiska, Wyatt Sapp, Brandon Crotts, and Kyler Staley.

Next week’s schedule includes twin 25-lap races in the Brad’s Golf Cars Modified Series, and twin 20-lap races in the McDowell Heating and Air Sportsman Series. Those races include the Elite Underground Utility Madhouse Scramble where the field is inverted after the first race in each f those two series. The winning driver after each of the first two races in those series will draw 8,10, 12, 14, and 16. The number that is pulled will invert the field for the second race in each series with that number.

Also, there will be a 20-lap race in the Law Offices of John Barrow Street Series, and there will be one or two 15-lap races in the Q104.1 Stadium Stock Series.

After all the racing is over, there will be a Midway Mobile Storage Chain Race for teams of two cars chained together. 

BGS Racing PR