New to modifieds, Ethan Stevens, left a message for his competitors on his spoiler. He went straight from 600 sprints to modifieds last year, competing most recently during the IMCATV Winter Nationals at Central Arizona Raceway.
While just 13, he has nine years of racing experience, with five in 600 sprints and the rest in karts.
“If my goal is to drive a modified, why not start in that division?” Stevens, of Mesa, Arizona, said. “I did not want a sport mod teaching me bad habits.”
When Stevens first hopped into a modified, he noticed one chief different right off the bat.
“First, I had to learn where the tires are,” Stevens said. “In a micro, the right rear was next to me; in a modified, it’s 4 feet behind. In the micro, I could see in every direction; in the modified, I can see forward and kind of right. The wall is a lot closer to the car than you realize in a modified. I drove the micro 2 feet from the wall. With the modified, you need about 8 feet from the wall from the driver’s sight because the rear end of the car will slide up to be 2 feet from the wall.”
Then, there’s the actual driving differences.
“The micro was up on the left a little more, and the modified is much more on the right rear,” Stevens said. “The modified rolls through the turns. At first, I liked having the modified tighter than I was used to in the micro. The modified wanted to drive into the track.”
During the IMCATV Winter Nationals, Ethan Stevens’ nights ended in the B feature, but he felt like he made progress. If anything, he’s earning respect from other drivers, he said.
“The other drivers have been nice,” Ethan said. “They read the back of my car and say, ‘You’re only 13? It’s cool that you can drive a modified.’”
Outside Groove Note of Transparency: Corrected the number of years Ethan raced 600s (2026-01-30).
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
