One last ride: Before retirement, Stan Mertz lives his dream as a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour team owner

Buck·et list – noun A number of experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime. Stan Mertz has been involved in racing for more than 20 years and has achieved more than he ever could have dreamed. He won races and championships as a driver and later did the same as a team owner. When he decided he would retire at the conclusion of the 2023 season, there was one thing he hadn’t yet crossed off his personal racing bucket list: Be a car owner on, specifically, the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. RELATED: Watch the World Series 150 from Thompson live on FloRacing “We’ve accomplished so much more than I ever thought that I would ever accomplish in my entire racing career, except for one thing, [race with] the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour,” said Mertz, who has fielded his own No. 6 Modified in select Tour events this year for driver Woody Pitkat. “In the world of open-wheel modified racing, that’s like moving up to Cup if you’re a full-fendered guy. “That was the only thing missing from my entire racing career.” Mertz’s road to the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and, ultimately, his retirement from racing, started as an 18-year-old when he raced at Speedway 95 in Hermon, Maine. His time competing at Speedway 95 was brief. He raced for a year before flipping his car. Being a teenager on a limited budget, he couldn’t afford to fix it, so he moved on with his life. Mertz graduated from school, went to work, got married and had children. Yet buried at the back of his mind was a desire, an overwhelming urge to race. It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch or a craving he couldn’t satisfy. Twenty years passed, but that urge never vanished. He began buying tools and stashing them in his garage. One day, after purchasing a welder, his wife cornered him and asked him point blank: “You’re thinking about racing, aren’t you?” There was no point in lying. “I hadn’t gotten it out of my system,” Mertz said. At 38, Mertz was back behind the wheel of a race car, first at Massachusetts’s Seekonk Speedway in a Sport Truck. In 2002, he purchased a three-quarter scale Pro 4 Modified, which he raced regionally. He won races and championships in the Pro 4 Modified, but he craved something more. In 2012, after a conversation with car owner Norm Perry, Mertz leased a full-sized Modified to race at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park. “I really got to know how to drive these cars,” Mertz said. “It was a blast. We started out at Thompson Speedway. That’s where I learned how to really drive the open wheel Modifieds. “I was up against guys like TC (Ted Christopher), Ryan Preece, Woody Pitkat. All the, at that time, big names.” Fast forward to 2014, and Mertz was starting to lose his passion. He remembers one specific night at Thompson that changed the trajectory of his career. “I was driving in a race at Thompson, and had the forethought to just say, 'I’m just not having fun anymore as a driver,'” Mertz said. “There were three races left in the season. At the end of that race, I stepped out of the car and said, ‘I don’t want to be a driver anymore.’ “Of course, at that time I had a brand new car. Basically what I did is hire Max Zachem to finish out the season for me. He’s a great shoe. Then in the offseason, I was deciding kind of what I wanted to be.” [caption id="attachment_409188" align="aligncenter" width="1300"] Woody Pitkat drives Stan Mertz's No. 6 at North Carolina's Concord Speedway in 2016. (Photo: Adam Fenwick)[/caption] Mertz during that offseason decided to transition from driver to owner. He hired Woody Pitkat, a familiar name to Modified fans in the Northeast, to drive his race car for the 2015 season. The two had worked together briefly the year before, and Mertz was curious to see what Pitkat could do in his equipment, so he decided they would race full-time at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park that season. “For the 2015 season, I said let’s go run the Sunoco Modifieds at Thompson,” Mertz said. “We went into it with no real expectations. He didn’t really know me a lot, I didn’t really know him a lot. I just knew that I wanted somebody that could really take what was essentially a new car and just a small funded team and see what he could do.” The team went winless that season at Thompson, but the lack of victories did not equate to a lack of success. Pitkat was so consistent in Mertz’s equipment that when the checkered flag waved to conclude the season, the duo had won the track championship despite having a zero in the win column. The championship was beyond Mertz’s wildest expectations. He’d given it so little thought that he didn’t even realize there was purse money from NASCAR for winning the track championship. “This is how naive I was. I didn’t really know too much about the NASCAR sanctioning of Thompson and the benefits that as a car owner you get, especially if you win a NASCAR track championship,” Mertz said. “The first thing Woody said was, ‘What are you going to do with the purse?’ I said, ‘What purse?’ He said, ‘You get a purse for winning the championship.’ Oh wow, that’s great! Then he says, ‘We also get to go to Charlotte for the awards ceremony.’ “To go in and first year together win a NASCAR track championship was like winning the Cup championship at that level.” Fast forward to the time between the 2022 and 2023 seasons, and Mertz was ready to retire. With Pitkat as his driver, Mertz had won more races and championships than he ever expected. So when it came time to decide what to do during his final year, Mertz looked at his personal bucket list, and there was only one thing left to do. The decision was made. For the 2023 season, he and Pitkat would race part-time with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. “I said if I’m going into my final year, let’s do it as a bucket list,” Mertz said. “There are very few things that I have left really as a small car owner for a bucket list. That bucket list included running the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. It’s the most prestigious tour. “The level of competition is so much different than even the local series that are run all through New England.” Mertz and Pitkat set a seven-race schedule for 2023 that began with the Duel at the Dog 200 at Monadnock Speedway in May. Utilizing the same car Mertz has owned since 2013, which he nicknamed "Princess," Mertz and Pitkat set off to make Mertz's Whelen Modified Tour dreams come true. [caption id="attachment_409187" align="aligncenter" width="1300"] Woody Pitkat, driver of the No. 6 Koopman Lumber Modified for Stan Mertz Racing, competes at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park earlier this year. (Photo: Tom Morris/Stan Mertz Racing)[/caption] In the six races the pair has entered so far, the best came at a familiar place, Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park. In August, Pitkat drove Mertz's No. 6 Koopman Lumber-sponsored car to an 11th-place finish after starting 17th. Now Mertz and Pitkat are returning to Thompson, the track where they have enjoyed so much success, to put a bow on Mertz's racing career this Sunday afternoon with the World Series 150 presented by FloSports.com. Just thinking about it makes Mertz emotional. “We’re going to go out there and do the best we possibly can and finish what to me has been an up-and-down season,” Mertz said. “I wouldn’t have missed it in a life time to be able to do that.” What comes next for Mertz after retirement? He plans to spend more time with his family and take his wife on a well-deserved vacation. While he won’t be a car owner anymore, Mertz still plans to spend some time at the races. With that said, Mertz said he’ll be spending a lot of time figuring out what makes him happy away from the race track. It’s one challenge Mertz can’t wait to tackle. "I'm going to kind of rediscover who Stan Mertz is,” he said. “I've been Stan Mertz the race car driver, Stan Mertz the car owner for so many years now that it's going to be kind of a personal thing to rediscover what is really going to make me happy going forward." Hap·pi·ness – noun The state of being happy.