12/11/2007
NASCAR TO CELEBRATE MODIFIED CHAMPIONS
• Lia’s Coronation Friday at Mohegan Sun
• Gathering of Modified Champions a Who’s Who of NASCAR Champions
• Sixteen Champions To Be Honored
When Donny Lia steps to the podium Friday to accept the trophy as
the 2007 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion, he will extend a
lineage of championship drivers that dates back not only to the
beginning of the Whelen Modified Tour in 1985 but even further back,
to the earlier days of NASCAR.
As NASCAR’s oldest division, the Modified division have
always held a special place in NASCAR history. In 2008, both NASCAR
and the Modifieds will celebrate their 60th year of racing. And
Friday, as Lia is crowned the newest champion, he will be surrounded
by some of the sport’s greatest drivers.
Sixteen NASCAR Modified champions, representing 34
championships, have confirmed their attendance at the 2007 NASCAR
Whelen Modified Tour awards banquet Friday at the Mohegan Sun Resort
in Uncasville, Conn.
Among those attending will be 1952 NASCAR Modified Division
champion Frankie Schneider who, at 81, is the oldest living Modified
champion. The New Jersey driver won hundreds of races in a career
that spanned more than five decades. He is just two months older
than Ernie Gahan. Gahan won the 1966 NASCAR Modified championship in
a 1936 Chevrolet coupe.
Other champions from the pre-Tour era scheduled to attend are
former NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series champion Bobby Allison, Jack
Choquette, Bugs Stevens and Jerry Cook. Eighteen years before he won
the Cup Series title, Allison captured the second of his
back-to-back NASCAR Modified championships (1964-65). Choquette won
the 1954 Modified Division championship and his grandson Jeff is now
a championship ASA Late Model driver. After finishing second to
Gahan in 1966, Stevens won three straight NASCAR championships from
1967-‘69. And Cook, now a Competition Administrator for NASCAR, won
six Modified Division championships (1971-‘72, 1974-’77).
The NASCAR Whelen Modified era, which began with the
formation of the Tour in 1985, will be well- represented as well
with Mike McLaughlin, Mike Stefanik, Jamie Tomaino, Jeff Fuller,
Rick Fuller, Wayne Anderson, Tony Hirschman Jr., Jerry Marquis, Todd
Szegedy and Lia.
Stefanik’s nine NASCAR championships – including seven on the
Whelen Modified Tour – ties him with the late Richie Evans, another
Modified great, for the record for the most NASCAR titles. Hirschman
has won five. The Fuller brothers won back-to-back years (Jeff in
1992 and Rick in 1993. McLaughlin (1988) won the first NASCAR Whelen
Modified Tour on a superspeedway with his victory at New Hampshire
in 1990.
Tomaino (1990) has made more starts than any other driver in
Modified Tour history, while Marquis followed up a NASCAR Whelen
All-American Series regional title driving an SK Modified at
Stafford (Conn.) Motor Speedway in 1999 with a NASCAR Whelen
Modified Tour championship in 2000. Anderson teamed with veteran car
owner Len Boehler to capture the 1994 championship. And Szegedy was
the youngest driver to win the Whelen Modified Tour title with his
2003 championship.
As the 2007 champion, Lia will receive a special championship
trophy introduced this year by NASCAR and series sponsor Whelen
Engineering. The trophy features the names of all the NASCAR
Modified champions dating back to 1948. With Friday’s gathering of
champions, NASCAR is set to kick off a year-long celebration of the
60 years of Modified racing for 2008.
THE END
Source: Jason
Christley/NASCAR WMT PR
Posted:
December 11, 2007 |