LOUDON, N.H. — Ron Silk pulled away from the field on a green-white-checkered finish to win the New Hampshire 100 Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and take back to the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour points lead.
Silk got a push from Todd Szegedy on the final restart to open some ground on the rest of the field and was unchallenged over the final two laps. Szegedy, who won the tour race at New Hampshire in July, finished second followed by Justin Bonsignore. Ted Christopher and Eric Beers completed the top five.
Silk won the Coors Light Pole Award Thursday and led the most laps in Saturday’s race to erase a 12-point deficit to Szegedy with two races remaining. Silk leads 2182-2174.
Saturday was Silk’s second career win at New Hampshire and his third checkered flag of the season.
“The car was really great right from the beginning,” Silk said. “We didn’t make any adjustments at the pit stop, I was happy with the car, it was actually a little bit better the second half of the race and I was able to get right up to the lead.”
Erick Rudolph, Zane Zeiner, Mike Stefanik, Matt Hirschman and Eric Goodale rounded out the top 10 finishers in the third in final race of the year at New Hampshire for the Whelen Modified Tour.
It was Zeiner’s first Whelen Modified Tour start since 2005 and his first top-10 finish at New Hampshire.
Defending race victor – NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Ryan Newman – finished 28th following engine failure after 40 laps.
There were a season-high 17 lead changes among five drivers. The race was delayed 24 minutes early on due to rain.
The New Hampshire 100 aired live on SPEED.
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will return to the track Sunday, Oct. 2 for the CARQUEST Fall Final at Stafford (Conn.) Motor Speedway.