Offseason Spotlight: Beattie Sweeps Flying Tiger Rookie Awards at Thunder Road and White Mountain

Youngster Planning Big Moves for 2021

Photo by Alan Ward

Barre, VT and N. Woodstock, NH – The Rookie of the Year is one of the most sought-after awards for young racers. In some ways, it may be even harder to win than a championship. The reason is simple — once you join a division, you only get one shot at the honor.

That is, unless you’re St. Johnsbury, VT’s Kasey Beattie. The 16-year-old pulled off a rare feat in 2020, sweeping the Flying Tiger Rookie of the Year Award at both Barre, VT’s Thunder Road and North Woodstock, NH’s White Mountain Motorsports Park. With numerous top finishes, he outclassed his fellow first-year competitors in two different states.

Beattie entered the season coming off an impressive career in the Street Stock division. He was the co-champion at Riverside Speedway in 2018, and in 2019, he finished fourth in rk Miles Street Stock points at Thunder Road. After the team purchased a Flying Tiger late in 2019, Beattie made his debut in the Oxford Open, then set his sights on a 2020 rookie campaign.

“Some of my biggest goals were really to get top-10s, top-5s — hopefully at least get a couple of those,” Beattie said. “I really exceed my goals, especially at White Mountain with getting a win there. Another big goal was to drive it in the trailer every week, and we succeeded at that every single week. I was happy about that.”

Accomplishing the last part was even bigger when considering the scope of Beattie’s first Flying Tiger season. Instead of just one track, Beattie and his team decided to double up. They would run the Lenny’s Shoe & Apparel Flying Tigers on Thursday nights at Thunder Road, then head to White Mountain Motorsports Park for the Wells River Chevrolet Flying Tiger showdowns on Saturday night. He also ended up running a Honey Badger Street Stock Series event at Thunder Road and the Open at Oxford Plains Speedway.

Even with the late start of the season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Beattie unofficially competed in 29 events. Thanks to the support of sponsors like Mark Baxter at Creative Counters, Andy Mitchell at The Auto Shed, and Verizon Wireless — plus a large pit crew of family and friends — Beattie packed two years of racing into one summer.

Photo by Daniel Holben

“We mostly did it for the experience,” Beattie said of running two tracks full-time. “It was nice to get two seasons of experience in one season. It was really expensive, but it was definitely nice to get two years of experience in one.”

While learning a new car is a challenge for anyone, Beattie got comfortable behind the wheel of a Flying Tiger car faster than he thought. He finished 10th in a 22-car field at White Mountain’s non-point season opener, then closed out the month of June with 3rd- and 4th-place finishes. On the Thunder Road side, he managed to qualify for the first three events and post solid finishes while coming from the back.

This set the teenager up for a torrid month of July. To kick things off, Beattie surprised even himself by picking up his first Flying Tiger win at White Mountain. He grabbed the lead on lap 6 from veteran Matthew Potter and ended up winning the 50-lap feature by a quarter-track — doing so in front of one of the season’s biggest crowds that had come to watch the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour make its WMMP debut.

“I definitely did not think that the car was going to amazing like how it was that night — and definitely not that early in the season,” Beattie recalled. “I was just hoping for a couple of top-3s around midseason. To get a win early in the season was crazy. It kept my confidence up, too. That’s a big thing with racing — you’ve got to have confidence.”

Photo by Mark Alan Sumner

He took that confidence into the Myers Container Service Triple Crown opener at Thunder Road on July 9. What followed was a thrilling race-long duel between Beattie, eventual winner Brandon Lanphear, and Jaden Perry. Beattie ended up third but was ecstatic with the result.

“That was probably my favorite race of the entire season,” Beattie said. “That race means more to me than even the win at White Mountain. We had a really fast car, and it was an amazing battle with Brandon and Jaden. I tried making a move on Brandon, but couldn’t get it done.”

Beattie ended the month of July with another pair of trophies. On July 24 at Thunder Road — a special Friday night show thanks to Mother Nature — Beattie took 10th in a make-up feature, then second in the double-point Midseason Championships. The next night, he headed to White Mountain and came home with another second-place trophy. It seemed everything was going right for the high schooler from Caledonia County.

However, some rough waters were ahead. Although Beattie continued putting up respectable results at White Mountain, his Midseason runner-up at Thunder Road was followed by four straight finishes of 23rd or worse.

“We mainly just lost the balance of the car,” Beattie said of his late-summer struggles. “Some weeks, we were going back and forth from really loose to really tight. We just couldn’t find the balance for awhile.”

“We did a lot of maintenance on the car,” Beattie continued. “We tore every single bit of the car apart and then put it back together how we thought it should be. We still weren’t as good as we were at the beginning of the season, but we definitely improved down the stretch.”

The swoon also tightened up the Thunder Road Rookie of the Year battle. While Beattie was the clear front-runner all year at White Mountain, he found himself under pressure from Bryan Wall Jr. in the Green Mountains. The fellow teenager won two races and closed to within a single point of Beattie following the August 13 event.

“It was really fun,” Beattie said of the battle. “Me and B-Wall are really good friends, Even throughout the battle, we still stayed friends and talked all the time. We went over to each other’s trailers and everything after races. It was really intense, though. Later in the season, I definitely thought he was going to get us, but we were able to hold him off with a couple of good finishes.”

Photo by Alan Ward

Beattie was finally able to right the ship in late August. He rolled to a runner-up finish at Thunder Road on August 20 with a fourth the next week. At White Mountain, he finished seventh or better in the final five events of the season. The youngster did so while also having to master the differences between the quarter-mile speedplants.

“White Mountain is a really heavy braking track,” Beattie noted. “At Thunder Road, unless you’re in deep traffic, you don’t really touch the brakes. And at Thunder Road, you’ve really got to get up on the wheel and drive it. At White Mountain, I feel you can be more smooth and hit your marks a lot better.”

When the checkered flag fell at White Mountain on September 26, he had officially sewn up both Rookie of the Year titles. He finished third in overall White Mountain points and 14th in Thunder Road points. Including non-point features, Beattie posted 1 win, 6 podium finishes, 11 top-5s, and 19 top-10s. At White Mountain, he was the only Flying Tiger driver to finish in the top-10 of every feature. He did so while learning a lot behind the wheel and having fun with his family every step of the way.

“It definitely means a lot to me,” Beattie said of the Rookie of the Year awards. “I proved to myself that I can do it and be competitive. That was the biggest thing — I’m a really competitive person, so if I wasn’t competitive, I didn’t want to do it. (Winning both awards) proved to myself that I was competitive and could roll with the big boys.”

One notable aspect of the season was Beattie’s success in long-distance events. In the eight Flying Tiger events that were 75 laps or longer, he finished in the top-10 six times. This put him in the top-10 in Triple Crown Series points at both Thunder Road and White Mountain.

“I really like long races, even back to the Street Stocks, when we ran long races and had that Twin State series between Thunder Road and Groveton,” Beattie said. “I did really well in the long races. I can get in a groove and hit my marks a lot better, and I just feel like those nights, the crew gives me an amazing car, so I can drive up through the field and stay consistent.”

Beattie will get to run a lot of long races in 2021. He revealed during our interview that his team recently purchased a Late Model from Joey Laquerre and plans to run for another Rookie of the Year honor at White Mountain in 2021. He said his goals are to get top-10 finishes, try to finish in the top-10 in points, and again drive the car into the trailer after every event.

“We’re not a big-budget team, and I drive like that,” Beattie said. “I don’t like to beat and bang off people, because I know stuff can break and things can go wrong. I like to keep my head on my shoulders, drive smoothly, and not try to move people and wreck people.”

In the meantime, Beattie is honing his racing skills virtually via iRacing. He got his start in the popular racing simulation two Christmases ago. This winter, he has been competing in the Inside Groove iRacing Challenge, where he sits seventh in points going into the regular season finale on Wednesday, January 20. Beattie is one of many Thunder Road, White Mountain, and ACT regulars racing, which fans can watch live at 7:30pm on www.facebook.com/InsideGrooveTV.

“I didn’t run much asphalt stuff at first — I ran a lot of dirt,” Beattie said. “But I started getting into the asphalt lately, especially with The Inside Groove. It’s definitely making the time fly, because it’s the offseason, but you still want to race. It’s super-fun with all the guys like Jimmy (Hebert), Ryan (Kuhn), Logan (Powers) — they’re all really good racers, and it’s fun to still race with them weekly.”