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  • Mike Stefanik Wins by Narrowest of Margins in NASCAR Whelen Modified Race

    [media-credit id=62 align=”alignright” width=”225″][/media-credit]While it was almost too close to call, veteran NASCAR Whelen Modified racer Mike Stefanik took the checkered flag in the Town Fair Tire 100 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

    Stefanik, in the No. 66 Canto & Sons Paving/Robert B. Our Co. Ford, scored his 72nd career win over competitor Ron Silk by just 0.003 seconds. He is the sole leader with Modified victories at New Hampshire Motor Speedway with eight, including two of the last three.

    “Believe it or not, I came out of Turn 4 and I thought this was going to be tight,” Stefanik said. “I actually physically sat up in the seat as much as I could and peered over the front of the car and rolled my eyes to see which bumper was ahead.”

    “I just wanted to win after such a hard fought battle,” Stefanik continued. “You hate to give them away because they don’t come often enough.”

    For Stefanik, this was indeed the closest finish of his long and storied career. And he made clear that he never tires of that winning feeling.

    “I’ve lost them, but not by that little bit,” Stefanik said. “Literally, I was looking across the cars to see which one was ahead. I’ve never done before that in my 36 years of racing.”

    “This feeling I have today never gets old,” Stefanik said. “I’m 54 years old and I still feel like I’m 21.”

    Stefanik has also been very good at the ‘Magic Mile’, a track that he has raced since the days of the Busch North Series. And his magic recipe for winning at New Hampshire Motor Speedway is fairly simple.

    “Put yourself in real good equipment, surround yourself with smart people, that’s A-1 because you can’t do it with a slug,” Stefanik said. “I like to overdrive the entry in this type of format and have a ballet-type perfect balance.”

    “It’s just a style of racing that I picked up on in the 90s and I don’t care if you win practice or where you start, just give me that nice set the tires down in the corner and some steam under the hood and we’ll be all set.”

    Stefanik’s prime competitor was Ron Silk, who finished that very close second in his No. 6 Reynolds Auto Wrecking/Schnitzer race car.

    “It was a lot of fun,” Silk said. “Whenever you get in the lead draft at New Hampshire, crazy stuff is happening the whole time.”

    “I don’t know what it looked like but it was a lot of fun in the car,” Silk continued. “Mike did an awesome job.”

    “I ran him up and he was able to hang onto it and beat me back to the line,” Silk said. “Congratulations to him.”

    This was also the closest finish that Silk has seen in his racing career. In fact, he was not sure even at the end of the race who won.

    “If it was 0.003 of a second, I’d say it was the closest finish I’ve been involved in,” Silk said. “But it sucks being on the wrong end of it I can tell you that.”

    The driver of the No. 52 Reynolds Auto Wrecking/Furnace & Duct race car, Doug Coby finished third. And he had to overcome quite a bit of adversity to achieve his best career finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

    “My race was a little different than Ron’s because I pitted four times before the break, “ Coby said. “We were just struggling on that Nationwide rubber and Cup rubber really bad.”

    “We made the right adjustments at the break,” Coby continued. “We tried to make some smart moves at the end and ended up third.”

    “It feels awesome.”

    Eric Beers, piloting the No. 45 Horwith Freightliner/John Blewett, inc., and Todd Szegedy, driving the No. 2 Dunleavy Repair/A&J Romano Construction Ford, rounded out the top five finishers in the Modified Tour.

    Cup driver Ryan Newman, behind the wheel of the No. 7 Menards/Aggressive Hydraulics, finished 30th after a tire problem ended his promising run.

  • Ron Silk Makes Whelen Modified Magic with Third Win

    Ron Silk, driver of the No. 6 TS Haulers/Calverton Tree Farm Chevrolet, made three times a charm with a win in the New Hampshire 100 on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. Silk, from Norwalk, Connecticut, started the race from the pole.

    [media-credit id=62 align=”alignright” width=”239″][/media-credit]This was Silk’s second career victory at the ‘Magic Mile’, his third win of the season and his seventh career win.

    “The car was really great right from the beginning,” Silk said. “After we didn’t make any adjustments at the pit stop, I was happy with the car. It got a little bit better throughout the race and I was able to get up there to the lead.”

    Silk said that pit strategy was important throughout the race, especially with the green flag runs, as well as the red flag rain delay.

    “It was definitely the right time to pit,” Silk said. “It went green for awhile. It would have been pretty tough to wait longer to take tires and get back through the field.”

    “I was confident,” Silk continued. “We’ve had a good car here all year.”

    Todd Szegedy, behind the wheel of the No. 2 Wisk Detergent/A&J Romano Construction Ford, finished second. This was Szegedy’s second win at New Hampshire and his 14th top-10 in 19 starts at New Hampshire.

    “Second is a phenomenal finish for us,” Szegedy said. “But we certainly didn’t have a second place car.”

    “We’ve got our homework to do,” Szegedy continued. “It’s fortunate we got second place but why were we so far off and basically struggled. It was a struggle for me to stay in the top five.”

    “That green-white-checkered, we started fourth,” Szegedy continued. “I had momentum and I knew I could push Ronnie. But I had absolutely zero for him.”

    The third place finisher was Justin Bonsignore, from Holtsville, New York. The driver of the No. 51 M3 Technology Chevrolet scored his best finish ever at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

    Bonsignore was the 2010 Sunoco Rookie of the Year on the Whelen Modified Tour. He finished fourth in August, so this third place finish was also his career best.

    “It was pretty eventful,” Bonsignore said. “The air cleaner came off about 20 laps in and we rode around until the yellow came out for the rain.”

    “We replace that and took tires then and that put us a little bit behind,” Bonsignore continued. “We stayed out and the car was good.”

    “Luckily that last restart, we mixed it up on that last lap and came home third.”

    “We’re only a second year team,” Bonsignore said. “I’m really proud of what we’ve built.”

    “To be contending for wins is really cool to do.”

    As is tradition at New Hampshire, the race had its share of drama. One source of drama was the weather, with sprinkles breaking out on the track, delaying the race.

    The other source of drama was for the only Cup driver in the competition. After his win disqualification at the last Modified race, Ryan Newman, who qualified fourth, blew the engine of his No. 77 Aggressive Hydraulics/Menards Chevrolet.

    Newman finished a disappointing 28th out of 29 spots, after the tell-tale smoke flowed from his race car on lap 60 of the race.

    The final drama of the race had to do with the points battle for the Whelen Modified Series championship. Szegedy came into the race leading the points by 12 points over Silk.

    “It’s a lot of fun, especially battling with a guy like Todd Szegedy,” Silk said. “He’s a good friend of mine.”

    “I kind of kept tabs on him throughout the race today and when I saw he was second, I said ‘Damn, I’m not going to gain too many points today.’

    “It’s going to go right down to the wire it looks like,” Silk continued. “It will go right down to the world series there at Thompson (International Speedway).”

    “This is how you win a championship,” Szegedy, the other points challenger, said. “You’ve got to use your head, stay out of trouble, and I’m being a nice guy because I want to win that championship.”

    After Silk, Szegedy and Bonsignore, rounding out the top five were Ted Christopher, driver of the No. 36 Al-Lee Installations, and Eric Beers, behind the wheel of the No. 45 Horwith Freightliner/John Blewett, Inc.

    Erick Rudolph, Zane Zeiner, Mike Stefanik, Matt Hirschman and Eric Goodale rounded out the top ten. Stefanik, who finished eighth, was the ‘comeback kid’ after spinning and going a lap down early in the race.

  • Ryan Newman Works Magic for Third Consecutive Whelen Modified Series Win

    Ryan Newman worked his magic at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway by winning his third consecutive Whelen Modified race. And Newman did so in style, taking the No. 7 Aggressive Hydraulics/Menards Chevrolet from the pole position to victory lane in the F.W. Webb 100.

    [media-credit id=62 align=”alignright” width=”213″][/media-credit]This was Newman’s 8th career Modified Series start and his 4th career win. Three of those victories have come consecutively at the New Hampshire track known as the ‘Magic Mile.’

    “We had a really good car today and I’m proud of this team,” Newman said, holding his daughter in Victory Lane. “We didn’t know what was going to happen if a yellow came out. But it all worked out.”

    “I didn’t really know what to expect with the race and how it was going to unfold,” Newman said. “Typically we have multiple cautions here.”

    “Our car was really loose and I really had to manage the steering wheel,” Newman continued. “It seemed like the track wasn’t like it was in practice and we struggled a little bit with that part.”

    “We were the tightest of the loose guys and that was all it took,” Newman said. “We had a lot of fun.”

    Kevin ‘Bono’ Manion, Newman’s team owner and crew chief, echoed his driver’s thoughts on the historic win.

    “It’s really special,” Manion said. “We won here as a team in the early 90’s and as a kid to come up and race with the Cup guys was really cool.”

    “So, to come back here and learning the aspects of owning a car, it’s really special.”

    Newman and Bono both reiterated their desire to see more Cup and Whelen Modified race combination dates, naming Richmond, Phoenix and Martinsville as just a few possibilities.

    “The one mile tracks for sure fit this car,” Manion said. “I think Richmond would be an incredible Modified track. This is a great Series and they put on a great race.”

    “We just like it when it’s convenient,” Newman said. “And at the same time, it’s good for NASCAR Whelen Modified Racing to have quite a few people sitting in the grandstands. So, it works out good.”

    Runner up Todd Szegedy, driver of the No. 2 Wisk Detergent/A&J Romano Construction Ford, secured his fourth top-five finish in six races of the 2011 season.

    “Second to me was kind of a win,” Szegedy said. “We beat all the regulars.”

    “We’ve had some bad luck here for the last three or four races so this was definitely a good run,” Szegedy continued. “We had a great car.”

    “At the end, I went into fuel conservation mode, so I started backing out of it a little bit,” Szegedy said. “I could run up on Ryan a little bit but I’d get free off so I never could make a good move on him.”

    “Ryan made it interesting,” Szegedy continued. “So, good for him anyways.”

    “I think we’ve got some work to do,” Szegedy said. “We’ve got to drive the track different and set the car up different. He’s not unbeatable. We’ll just have to work harder.”

    Ron Silk, driver of the No. 6 T.S. Haulers/Calverton Tree Farm Chevrolet, scored the third position. This was Silk’s fourth podium finish in six races this year.

    “I was surprised how long it went green,” Silk said. “All my guys did a great job all weekend and we made about a thousand adjustments since we got here.”

    “I got a little bit close to Newman on the last lap but I just got up in the loose stuff,” Silk continued. “And once you get up there, you just can’t get out.”

    Matt Hirschman, driving the No. 3 Cape Cod Copper/Riverview Chevrolet, finished fourth. And Doug Coby, behind the wheel of the No. 52 Reynolds Auto Wrecking Chevrolet, rounded out the top five.