Andy Seuss Wins Florida Speedweeks Modified Championship

David versus Goliath is a story everyone knows. It is about the little guy who beats the big guy, despite all the odds working against him. All week long at New Smyrna Speedway, young Andy Seuss looked at himself as the little guy among giants while competing in the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing, better known to many at Smyrna Speedweeks. Not only was Seuss racing against some of the biggest and best names from the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, but he was also going up against teams with much deeper pockets than his family-operated team.

By winning the title this year, Seuss beat the likes of Christopher, Beers, Donny Lia, Chuck Hossfeld and John Blewett for the title.

“A couple of weeks ago, I would have never dreamed this,” said Seuss. “I just wanted to win a race. That didn’t happen, but we always finished up front. We just beat them with base-hits. We didn’t hit any homeruns, but we kept getting RBIs out of those hits.”

Andy failed to win a race during the week, but never finished worse than seventh. In fact, in seven races, Seuss collected two fourth-place and three fifth-place finishes.

“When we left (Friday) night, we didn’t even want to talk about the points. We knew if we finished in the top five, we’d be good. That was our goal. We came in this morning and we knew exactly where we needed to finish; exactly how many points we had to get to keep our distance from each guy.”

So Seuss did just what he needed to do. He finished fifth in the finale on Saturday night and became the Speedweeks Modified champion.

“It means a lot to me. It is my first championship in a car. I won a few in the go-karts, but never in a full-size car. I have the utmost respect for these racers. I am the biggest modified fan there is. I go to every

modified race I can, whether I’m in it or not. I just can’t say how much it means to run with these guys on a track that Richie Evans (9-time NASCAR Modified Nat’l Champion) made famous. I can’t express how awesome it was to see my guys really come together. I’ve been in total disbelief the last couple of days just being in the points lead. Coming into Saturday, I couldn’t eat; I couldn’t sleep a wink. I’ve never been in this position.

“We are the little guys. We don’t have a lot of money and we have a little operation. We don’t have a backup car; we don’t have a backup engine; we don’t even have backup exhaust. So, luckily, we didn’t even bend a rim all week.”

Something else that is impressive is the fact that Seuss doesn’t even run the king of all Modified tours, the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. Instead, he is one of the regulars of one of the “little guy” series up north, the True Value Modified Series.

“This is big for the True Value series. We’ve had some conflicts with the series, but they’ve always been very supportive of my other racing. We support them as much as we can. We are going to go back this year and run for the championship. I’m going to keep supporting the series.”

And of course, Seuss was very thankful for his team.

“The car was flawless all week. The crew was amazing all week. Our guys took two weeks off of work to come down here and I can’t thank them enough. One person I really need to thank is my brother, Steve. He stayed home and ran the family business this week, which just happens to be the busiest week of the year. It just coincided this year.

He said he’d take care of it and let me and my dad come down and have some fun. I owe a lot to him. I can’t thank him enough.

“A couple of years ago, we came down here. My parents took out a loan to buy a racecar and get my name out there. That worked, because we got the attention of my current car owner, Jerry Morello. I feel awesome for my owner and all of my sponsors; One Stop Toy Shop, Rockingham Boats, Howard Construction, Jamison Excavating and the New Hampshire Radio Network. We gave him his first top-five finish at New Smyrna last year. He’s been coming here for some time. We are excited to give him his first championship.”

“These are the best down here; the Teddy Christopher’s, the Chuck Hossfeld's, the Eric Beers’. I just have the utmost respect for all of them. I really wanted to win a race coming down here. We didn’t get the right breaks coming down here. I can’t complain a bit, though. We’ve got a championship. This is the best two weeks of my life. It has been amazing.”

For more information on Andy Seuss, please contact Mike Twist at (207) 590-1786 and be sure to visit www.andyseuss.com.