The SMART Modified Tour kicks off its 2022 campaign on Saturday at South Carolina’s Florence Motor Speedway with the running of the Low Country 99. Carolina Modified ace Burt Myers is the defending series champion, but he’s seeking his first win at Florence this weekend.

“Florence has been a really good track for us,” Myers said. “We haven’t won there yet, but every time we’ve been there we’ve been in position to win. Things just didn’t fall the way we needed them to.”

Florence Motor Speedway is a 4/10-mile oval located just a few minutes from I-95 and barely 20 minutes south of the legendary Darlington Raceway. Florence’s defining characteristic is its lack of an outside retaining wall surrounding most of the race track. The wall only exists on the frontstretch, while the corners and backstretch are open.

“The first time I went it was really different,” said Myers. “It was the first track I went to that didn’t have a wall down the backstretch. It’s a little bit intimidating to start with, but then you realize you’re only going to go so far either way, whether there’s a wall there or not. It creates a new challenge.”

STORY: Florence Motor Speedway A Diamond Of The Southeast

Even though it’s quite different than most tracks in the Carolinas, Myers said that he feels Florence is a great track for Modifieds because it adds a strategy element to the racing.

“People that know Modifieds know, especially in the south, there’s only a couple of tracks where you can run hard all night long,” he said. “It puts strategy into it, it puts handling into it. It puts a smart driver in a position where he can take advantage of that. I’ve always liked running tracks that way, because it was more than just going flat out all night.”

Myers enters this season as the defending series champion. He’s a two-time SMART Modified Tour champion, though the first came way back in 2002 during the first iteration of the SMART Tour. Myers said that defending a championship comes with its own pressures, but he added that he enjoys that.

“It’s always a good way to carry momentum. My grandpa used to say back in the day, ‘If they weren’t talking about you, then you weren’t winning.’' The fact that we are going in as the defending champion, I think there’s a responsibility that comes with it to compete at the highest level.”

Race fans can see Saturday’s race from Florence Motor Speedway, as well as the entire 12-race SMART Modified Tour calendar that ends on October 15  at North Carolina’s Tri-County Speedway live on FloRacing. If you're not already a FloRacing subscriber, click here to join today.