Andy Seuss Has Identity Crisis Preparing for North-South Shootout
19-Year-Old New Hampshire Driver Is Used to Racing Up North and Down South
The race pits the best of the Northern Modified world against their Southern counterparts. On one hand, Seuss is from New Hampshire and finished fifth in True Value Modified Racing Series points this season. On the other hand, he’s been a semi-regular on the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour and won the Florida Speedweeks championship in February. The personable 19-year-old racer has ties to both sides of this racing battle.
“We’ve made so many friends and maybe even a few enemies down South and we’ve done the same thing up North, so I really don’t know what side I’m on in this racing civil war,” said Seuss.
Having experience racing in both places should be beneficial to Seuss at the Shootout.
“It helps because I’ve had experience racing some of the North guys and the South guys,” said Seuss. “If I come up on someone, I might know their tricks or habits a little more. It also helps that we have some experience with the Southern tires because that’s what they are running down there. Between knowing the drivers and the tires, hopefully we’ll be in good shape to get a good finish.”
Seuss has also discovered the not-so-subtle differences between Modified racing in both areas.
“It’s a whole different kind of racing. There seems to be cleaner racing down South and that is probably because there aren’t any high dollar teams and people can’t afford to wreck their cars. I really enjoy running like that. Last time that we went down there [for a NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified event], there were two cautions. One was for a blown engine and the other for a flat tire. It’s a lot of fun racing like that and knowing that those guys will race you clean.”
Last year at the Shootout, Seuss and his family-owned #70 team finished 11th against some much larger teams. An even better result could have been in the cards though if the race played out a little bit differently.
“We pitted early and only had one set of tires. A few teams had multiple sets, so they put them on. We had I think an eighth place finish going until there were about 20 laps to go. Pretty much everyone behind me pitted for tires and I was the last car on old tires. That made me a sitting duck. We were able to hold on to 11th, which wasn’t quite a top 10, but it was good because early in the race we got in a wreck. The rear clip was bent and it was far from perfect.”
The North-South Shootout at Concord Motorsport Park (NC) is set for November 3rd-4th. Qualifying will take place on Friday evening, with Saturday night bringing about feature races for several different divisions of Modifieds.
