Andy Seuss is making the trip to New Smyrna Speedway’s
World Series of Asphalt Stock Car racing for the third time
this month. In 2005, he wore the tag of Modified rookie. Last
year, he showed up as an upstart young driver with a victory in
the True Value Modified Racing Series to his credit.
This time around, he wears a very different crown – that of
defending New Smyrna Modified champion. The 19-year-old
racer came out on top after nine nights of racing during last
year’s version of Florida Speedweeks and that allows him to
carry his head high entering this year’s races.
“It’s something that our whole team is very proud of,” said
Seuss. “It opened some people’s eyes to what we could do
and gave me some credibility as a driver.”
While repeating as champion is high on Seuss’ list of goals
for this year’s Speedweeks, he also has another
accomplishment in mind.
“The only thing that we came up short on last year was a
win,” said Seuss. “So we’d like to go after that this year.
Last year, our consistency really paid off. I think that we
were a contender to win every night, but we would get caught
up in wrecks and I’d have to come back through the field.
The thing that won us the championship was having an
incredible crew that put me in the position to go back out and
finish well. They actually ripped the rear end out of the car to change some brackets in the Richie Evans Memorial 100. We never lost a lap and finished fifth. That’s huge.
“We’re going with the same attitude, but now we’re also going harder for the wins, too. We want those big trophies, and we want to prove that we can beat everyone to the checkered flag.”
The championship-winning team that Seuss won the 2006 title with is coming back to New Smyrna intact this year.
“We have the same team, the same car and the same engine that Joey Caraccia and NuSkool engines put together for us. We’ll go down with a similar setup, updated with what else we learned in the year since then, so we should be good.”
Seuss’ #70 Rockingham Boat team is a made up of family members and close friends. Their budget isn’t a large one, and they are underdogs of sorts. But, that might actually help their chances when it comes to chasing championships.
“We do this out of our pockets, and we’re a team that can’t really wreck a whole lot. Maybe I can’t take some of the chances that some of the other guys can take, and that might have paid off with the championship. My team told me going into the races that we couldn’t wreck every night, so I didn’t. That paid off with good finishes every night.”
Having the confidence that comes with winning a championship
