{"id":7120,"date":"2011-09-05T21:05:21","date_gmt":"2011-09-06T01:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=9076"},"modified":"2011-09-07T21:06:16","modified_gmt":"2011-09-08T01:06:16","slug":"nascar-modified-tours-ready-thompson-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/nascar-modified-tours-ready-thompson-showdown\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR Modified Tours Ready For Thompson Showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thompson\"
\nNASCAR Modified Tours Ready For Thompson Showdown
\nNew Special Event at Historic Connecticut Track<\/strong><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Sept. 2, 2011) \u2014 After nearly three decades of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour making the occasional trip outside of its Northeast home base for events to southern racing hotbeds, for the first time the southerners will head to New England.
\n
\nVenerable Thompson (Conn.) International Speedway will play host to a new special event on Sept. 10-11 that will bring up the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour to join its northern counterpart NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour for a pair of individual 125-lap points-paying races and a 50-lap exhibition contest for head-to-head bragging rights: the UNOH Showdown.<\/p>\n

The Whelen Modified Tour has toured the .625-mile high banks of Thompson on 114 occasions since its first season in 1985, and the NASCAR Modifieds ran there long before that, but this will be the first time the Whelen Southern Modified Tour has ventured north of the Mason-Dixon Line. And four a tour that visits such historic southern racing venues like North Carolina\u2019s Bowman Gray Stadium and Caraway Speedway frequently, Thompson is the perfect place to make the maiden voyage north.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really looking forward to it,\u201d said 2010 NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour Champion Burt Myers. \u201cI think Thompson and the Hoenig family have done a really good job of enticing people to come up. It\u2019s one of those deals where a lot of [southern] people don\u2019t realize the Modified history at Thompson Speedway. Being someone like myself and my family that appreciates the history side of racing \u2013 especially with Modified history and racing at Bowman Gray Stadium every week \u2013 it always puts a special buzz in the air when you go to a place like that with the history behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike the majority of his Whelen Southern Modified Tour competitors, Myers does have some Thompson experience. He participated in two Whelen Modified Tour events there in 2010, and finished 14th both times.<\/p>\n

Myers, George Brunnhoelzl III, L.W. Miller and Andy Seuss may be the favorites in the Whelen Southern Modified Tour 125-lap race based on their prior experience at Thompson, but they\u2019ll have to contend with the regular stacked contingent of drivers from the Whelen Modified Tour in the 50-lap Showdown who know Thompson like the back of their hand. Chief among those is Ted Christopher.<\/p>\n

Christopher temporarily parted ways with his No. 36 team and car owner Eddie Whelan in mid-July, but they\u2019ll rejoin forces at Thompson for the first of four races together to close out the season. This does not bode well teams from either tour as Christopher has won seven of the last nine Whelen Modified Tour races at Thompson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told Eddie [Whelan] that I at least wanted to run Thompson because I\u2019ve got a pretty good record there,\u201d Christopher said. \u201cI really wanted to go there for that race if anything. Now we\u2019re going to run that and some others, but I\u2019m really looking forward to Thompson.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christopher, who has 13 total Whelen Modified Tour wins at Thompson, including both events this year, is excited about seeing the Whelen Southern Modified Tour teams come up to Thompson and really likes the format of the event, especially the 50-lap dash for cash.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey get to come up in our territory. I\u2019m looking forward to it,\u201d Christopher said. \u201cI really appreciate Donald and D.R. [Hoenig] putting up that type of money for that short of a race. It should be an interesting race. That plays into my hands because I\u2019m an all-out driver from Lap 1, so for me, I can go as hard as I can for 50 laps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following practice and qualifying for both tours on Saturday, Sept. 10, the Whelen Southern Modified Tour 125 will get things started on Sunday, Sept. 11 at 12:45 p.m. The Whelen Modified Tour 125 will follow at 2:30 p.m., and the UNOH Showdown is slated for 5:30 p.m. The top 12 cars from each 125-lap race will transfer to the Showdown and an additional 12 provisional positions will fill out the 36-car field.<\/p>\n

With the unique format to the entire event, which is creating a north versus south element to the Showdown, a driver has to enter the tour in which they primarily compete during the season, so they cannot run both 125s. Some teams might choose to enter a car in both races however, and that is just what got Keith Rocco into the event.<\/p>\n

Rocco, the defending NASCAR Whelen All-American Series national champion, has blazed Thompson and two other Connecticut ovals on a weekly basis in recent seasons, but this will be just his fifth NASCAR touring modified event. He will drive a Hillbilly Racing entry in the Whelen Southern Modified Tour 125 while the team\u2019s Whelen Modified Tour entry will be piloted by its regular driver James Civali.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely excited about it,\u201d Rocco said. \u201cThey [Hillbilly Racing] were looking for someone to do it, and I guess I was first on the list.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rocco is no stranger to competing at Thompson in the Sunoco Modified division where he won the 2007 and 2009 track championships. Two of his four career Whelen Modified Tour starts also came there, including his debut in the 2008 World Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really curious to see how we\u2019re going to do. I think we should be competing for the top five,\u201d Rocco said.<\/p>\n

The Whelen Modified Tour will once again bring its familiar names like Christopher to the track for UNOH Showdown weekend, but Myers and Rocco will be just two of the drivers that the Thompson fan base will be exposed to with the special event as entries continue to file in.<\/p>\n

For event and ticket information, please visit Thompson\u2019s official website, www.thompsonspeedway.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASCAR Modified Tours Ready For Thompson Showdown New Special Event at Historic Connecticut Track DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Sept. 2, 2011) \u2014 After nearly three decades of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour making the occasional trip outside of its Northeast home base for events to southern racing hotbeds, for the first time the southerners will head […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[196,4163,45,126,41],"tags":[15775,15774],"class_list":["post-7120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecticut","category-modified","category-nascar","category-new-england","category-thompson","tag-nascar","tag-thompson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}