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Burt Myers gives his perspective on the Franklin County incident – ​​Short Track Scene

Theo

Legendary southern Tour Type Modified racer Burt Myers says he has two hard and fast rules when it comes to competing with him.

“Don’t mess with my family and don’t touch my cars.”

Myers said the former happened over the weekend at Franklin County Speedway in a highly publicized physical altercation between his team and track officials during a Carolina Crate Modified Series event.

In a video posted to Facebook, the 10-time Bowman Gray Stadium champion says an official poked and shoved his 15-year-old son, Slate, with the stop-and-go sign, sparking a scoring argument that led to what happened next.

The race ended six laps short of the scheduled distance because the elder Myers, his crew and Franklin County Speedway officials had to be separated after several fights broke out in the infield.

Slate was spun out in an accident with seven laps to go and a dispute ensued over where race officials would rejoin him. Burt tried to delegate that dispute but insists there was no animosity toward series officials, just confusion.

Slate’s score was set, and a lap later the red flag was shown during a caution period to clarify the order – all while Myers’ car was still on the track.

“Slate comes on the radio and says, ‘Dad, come here, come here,’ because the guy is over here, poking him with the stop-and-go sign and cursing him with words that I will not repeat in this video,” the elder Myers said.

“I ran over there, jumped on the track and said to the guy, ‘That’s my 15-year-old son buckled in the car, so if you have a problem and you want to talk to somebody this way, talk to me this way.’

“At that point, I was pushed, I was shoved. I threw my radio. I shouldn’t have done that. Honestly, I’m embarrassed that the whole night took place, but I just can’t imagine that anyone in that situation wouldn’t have done the same thing when it comes to your son.

“It had nothing to do with what happened on the track. I don’t care what happened on the track. Slate will have his ups and downs in racing. That’s racing.”

The elder Myers said there was no problem with contact on the track because it was just racing.

“What concerned me was a marshal, a grown man, weighing 250 pounds, standing 6 feet tall, threatening, swearing and shoving.”

It’s worth noting that the officials who acted aggressively against Myers were track officials, not series officials, although theoretically both were present and working together. Series director Keith Graham has reached out to Short Track Scene to reiterate that his officials were only trying to de-escalate the situation and that his group would not behave in such a way.

Burt Myers and his crew get into a fight with officials in Franklin County

Myers’ complaint about the series is that his son should have parked at the back of the lead lap cars and not at the back of the field, which is correct. They kept telling Slate to go to the back of the field.

He said “the situation was pretty much resolved” when a fourth party escalated the situation.

“It all came to a physical standoff when a car owner from another team, who had nothing to do with the situation, came up to me and tried to attack me and grab me,” Burt said. “That’s when everything went wrong and then people started pushing and shoving and hitting and everything.”

“So we’re embarrassed. We’re embarrassed. I know it’s a stain on modified and short track racing in the south. I know the fans like to see that kind of thing, but from our perspective, that’s not the image we want to project.

“With that said, I want to apologize to everyone who was drawn into this, but I want you to think about how you would judge someone if you weren’t in the situation yourself.”

Burt says someone physically provoked his son as he was being strapped into a race car under a red flag, and he wouldn’t accept it.

“I just wanted everyone to know that Burt didn’t tell Slate members not to get in line because we tried to resist or because we thought we didn’t belong there,” he said. “So we’re not going there.”

“The officials in the pit communicated with me and we tried to understand the situation. Race control must understand that we as drivers, as teams and as crew members are driving side by side with a car to manage the situation.

“When you drive next to a car, it means, ‘Hey, could you stop for a minute and tell me what’s going on?’

Burt reiterated that he was embarrassed and that his conviction was justified, but that he could not mess with his family like that.

“That’s just how we are as humans,” he said. “We all do things we regret, we do things we maybe shouldn’t have done when they happened. You think about what you could have done differently. At the end of the day, I will always stand up for my family and I don’t think there’s a parent who wouldn’t have done what I did.”

Um, but at the end of the day, I’m always going to stand up for my family. And I don’t think there’s a parent out there that wouldn’t have done exactly what I did.

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