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08/26/2011 |
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NASCAR WHELEN
MODIFIED TOUR UNOH PERFECT STORM 150
Combined NWMT and
NWSMT Race Report
by
Polly Reid &
Denise DuPont |
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  Same
car, same driver, different motor- same results.
Ryan Newman of South Bend, IN made good use of
timing to make a final pass for the lead with 22 to
go repeating what he did a year ago- score the win
in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour UNOH Perfect
Storm 150 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Following Newman across the line for the combined
annual NWMT and NWSMT event was Justin Bonsignore
for second, Todd Szegedy third, James Civali and
Patrick Emerling the top five.
“I felt we had a better car in practice this year
than we did last year” said Newman. “You never know
how it’s going to play out- I don’t think anyone
anticipated the multiple yellows. Once we got racing
which seemed to be around lap 75 then we got another
caution and we came in, pitted for tires. Gary
Putnam did a great job with both the car and the
calls during the race. With Kevin ‘Bono’ Manion not
being here after the Loudon deal this is a little
bit of redemption for us just to come out here and
redeem ourselves a little bit with respect to
people’s opinions after the last Loudon.”
His fourth career NWMT win, second in a row at
Bristol Motor Speedway for Newman, the key to the
event appeared to be when the leaders pitted just
past the half way mark on lap 86. Szegedy who had
pitted earlier inherited the lead followed by L.W.
Miller, Tim Brown, Civali, Andy Seuss with the fresh
Hoosier group lining up after that including
Bonsignore, Newman, Mike Stefanik, Eric Beers Eric
Berndt the top ten.
Civali made his pass to become the newest leader on
lap 94- Civali, Szegedy and Newman making it a three
car break away from the pack. The ninth and final
caution on lap 104 changed the complexion of the top
ten when contact between Ron Silk and Eric Goodale
set off a chain reaction collecting up the hard
charging Brown and Stefanik. Brown and Stefanik
joined the growing list of teams that would collect
DNF’s for the event.
The double file restart with 38 to go lined up with
Civali leading, Szegedy, Newman, Seuss and
Bonsignore the top five. With 22 to go, Civali and
Szegedy still out front, Newman timed his move to
become the new and final leader on lap 128.
“Civali got tight- he was good on the restarts,
really fast, then he would get tight just past the
center of the corners. Szegedy was on older tires so
I wouldn’t say he was a sitting duck but we had an
advantage over him in respect to just the tires
themselves,” explained Newman. “Todd did a good job
sneaking around the 79 while I was trying to work
the bottom - I got around the 79 at the same time -
Todd got a little tight off of turn four and I just
timed it right going underneath him - it got me a
head of him at the start finish line and so I just
went a little extra harder going into turn one and
got the lead.”
From there on in it was a race for second. On the
move, Bonsignore had worked his way into the top
three, his sights on Szegedy making the pass low on
the front stretch for second with 14 to go.
As the green continued, the top four spaced out
their run with Newman keeping a solid distance from
Bonsignore to score the win, Szegedy worked to keep
up with Bonsignore as his handling faded for third
while Civali hung on to a somewhat distant fourth.
Meanwhile Emerling recovered to score his best
rookie finish of the season at fifth.
“It was just really a fun race,” said Newman. “The
yellow flags at the start of the race kind of slowed
everybody’s thoughts but getting back to green flag
racing I thought we saw some really good racing. We
had some really good restarts, at least from my
standpoint. I think I came from 8th to 3rd in a lap
and a half. It was all fun- I have to thank
Aggressive Hydraulics, Menards and Chevrolet for all
of there help - this race car, it’s a lot of fun to
come out here. Like I said on one hand we redeem
ourselves after Loudon on the other hand starting
all over to prove we can do it.”
“We had a pretty good day- we had an early draw for
time trials which killed us, we qualified 19th,”
said Bonsignore. “The first half of the race we
avoided some wrecks we should have been in, got
lucky getting through those- a couple of guys pitted
and on the restarts, we were on the outside, our car
was really good on the top. We got up to fifth or
sixth there and decided to pit when the leaders did
- the guys had a great pit stop, we were the first
ones off of pit row which I’ve got to thank my guys
for that, that was the first time we’ve done that as
a team. We were buying our time after that, picked
them off one by one.” On the final restart,
Bonsignore did have to start on the bottom. “That
allowed Newman to get further away from us than I
would have liked. He just got too far out in front
of us then. I got past Todd with 20-something to go
- the car was good but I had knocked the toe in
around lap 100, 110, the car got too tight in the
center. I don’t know if Newman was playing with us,
he just took off the last 15 laps and we just kind
of salvaged what we could. I’ve got to thank my
guys, M3 Technology- since our first win we’ve been
able to turn our season around, show we can run up
in the top five every week.”
The day started memorable for Todd Szegedy, the Mike
Smeriglio owned Ford topping the speed chart in the
first practice. The rest of the day however was a
head scratching struggle for crew chief Phil Moran
and the rest of the MSR team but when the checker
dropped, crossing the line third had to feel like a
near victory.
“The day started off real smooth,” said Szegedy.
“The car was real fast, we were fastest in the first
practice but we were only quick for a couple of laps
then the car would go right to tight, it was odd,
different than what I’ve ever felt. It would be so
tight I could come out of the corner and crank the
wheel to the left and still be going straight.
Exiting the corner I had the wheel turned to the
left and still be going straight it wouldn’t be
turning towards the infield like you’d think it
would, that’s how tight it was- that was baffling.
The second practice we came out pretty decent but at
the end of practice I noticed a skip, something
weird in the engine but I didn’t know if it was any
cars around me because I was still going fast, I
didn’t really feel the engine loose it’s power. As a
per-caution, we checked the ignition, changed the
spark plugs on it, thought it was running a little
lean and put a little jet in it, then we went to do
our qualifying run and it was absolutely terrible.
We had to swap the engine.”
Changing motors after qualifying put Szegedy to the
back of the pack for the initial green flag. An
in-car camera on the UNOH/Wisk Detergent Ford, the
Speed viewers had plenty to see. “I was just biding
my time, passing on the outside but we got involved
in a bunch of wrecks- just in the middle of them I
don’t know what people were doing, they were
wrecking on the straight away, in the middle of the
corners, they were everywhere. Then a spark plug
wire fell off, I couldn’t believe it- we pitted for
that, went a lap down, meanwhile I was just taking
it easy back there then drove hard. We waited for a
caution to come out, it did, we got our lap back,
made another run, decided to pit early, take tires
then rode the wrecks and made our way to the front.
We ended up too tight, that killed us. If we didn’t
tighten up the car so much we would have had
something for Newman.” Szegedy continued, “Man, we
have such a phenomenal team, words don’t explain it,
the guys work together so well, we’ve got the best
team on the Tour, there’s no question about it. The
wins will come, the championships will come if we
keep this up.”
“You get such a good head of steam going here, we
got within five or six car lengths but the car was
just getting tighter and tighter as the track
rubbered up,” Bonsignore added. “I might have been a
little too aggressive wanting to tighten the car up
on our pit stop- they left that up to me - I feel I
might have over compensated then I got the toe
knocked in so it made it even worse. We had the
second best car on new tires. I knew we could get
Todd and James (Civali), they raced me really clean,
I knew they would. It was a really good day, we’ve
really turned our season around it seems since our
first win. We’re contending every week now which is
were we feel we should be. It’s just a shame we got
so far behind in the beginning of the season. We’re
building towards next year because we think we can
contend for championships like Ronnie and Todd and
all those guys.”
Crew member of Newman’s 77, Gary Putnam talked about
their day from his perspective. “We were a little
too tight in practice. We got it where he was pretty
happy with it and we were trying a couple of
different things just to build up our notebook a
little bit better. We thought we would have a decent
shot at the pole, then we missed the autograph
session, that was my fault. It was on the entry
blank, mandatory, Ryan missed it so we only got one
lap for qualifying, that’s probably what hurt us. We
still got a good starting spot, kind of paced
ourselves for the first half of the race. We went
into the deal with thinking anything past half way
we’ll come in and change tires.” Putnam continued.
“There’s always a concern when you pit, some guys
stay out and you’re back in the pack. It took both
Civali and Todd a long time to get back up through
the field and ultimately it took the rest of the
field to pit for them to get up there. For whatever
reason this year it was hard to pass cars, for
everybody, I mean even if you were a fair amount
quicker than the guy in front of you, it was tough.
Then we got an awesome restart right after the pit.
He cleared all the mess, that helped a tremendous
amount.”
Like the elephant in the room, Putnam offered a few
words about the disqualification at Loudon. “The
whole deal was just unfortunate, it was an oversight
on someone’s part. We all paid the penalty, it
wasn’t good for us, it’s not good for the division,
its not good for anybody, we felt really, really bad
about it. We worked on getting ready for here, read
the rule book for the 3rd time, make sure everything
else was right.” Putnam, whose wife Marcy is listed
as the car owner of the 77 added, “We want to show
people we can win races. It was the first race on
that motor, it was brand new built. I’ve been
telling people for the last three years, it’s the
guy in the seat. There’s a reason why he is 8th in
the Cup points.”
The 77 will be at Loudon in September. “That was the
plan all along. He loves driving there, he loves
driving here and he really wants to try Thompson.”
Coors Light pole winner Bobby Santos became one of
several engine failures of the day as well as
outside pole starter Erik Rudolph. His first trip to
Bristol Motor Speedway, Doug Coby adjusted well to
the high banks of BMS, starting his day ninth, the
Milford, CT driver was running as high as fourth at
the half before motor issues sidelined the Reynolds
Auto Wrecking machine with 95 laps complete.
With Ryan Newman representing the north and taking
the lead spot, the first car for the southern tour
received credit for a NWSMT win. The surprised
victor was series regular, Frank Fleming, who
managed to avoid mishaps and used a late race pit
strategy to give him the win. Fleming has had a lot
of race wins but this was his first ever modified
tour win. Having his first tour win occur at Bristol
was a major accomplishment for the small family race
team.
For the past two years at the Bristol combo race the
Fleming race team battled an ill handling race car.
This year the team finally found the right
combination that helped them be where they needed to
be during the final laps of the race.“In practice I
have come up here for two years and I drove the race
as loose as I could be,” Fleming said from his
hauler. “I turned some good times in practice and
even had a top ten car in practice. But in the race
I would be so loose that I could not drive it. I
told Chris today we have to keep it from bottoming
out and get this car where I could drive it in the
corners and not be loose. So we worked on it during
practice all day. Everybody thinks that my car got
faster, but it didn’t. I did not put my new tires on
until fifty to go and that helped me."
"My car was good all day long. I could drive it in
the corners hard without it being loose. I just
think that we made the right calls for the chassis.
I do not know what we could have done to qualify
better but these other boys just seem to know how to
do it. Guess I will just keep hunting.”
All smiles as he continued to work with officials to
get the car through post race inspection Fleming had
the reality of the day’s accomplishment finally sink
in. He not only had a top ten finish but a win on
the southern modified tour. And just when he did not
think it got any better, he realized that the team’s
performance was nationally televised. “We got the
southern win. This is a combination race with both
the north and the southern cars. I really love to
run the northern cars but they always have an edge
on us for some reason or other and I do not know
why. I like a lot of competition and man it was here
today. I was sitting here looking at that field of
cars over there and those are the best field of cars
in the country. And I finished eighth out of the
thirty-four or thirty-five cars that started this
race I think that is terrific. We were the first
southern car in the race and that will put my name
in the NASCAR books. I have won a lot of races here
in the south. I probably won sixty or seventy races
all together but I have never had a NASCAR tour win.
Now we have one to our credit and we had live TV on
Speed.”
Southern modified driver Andy Seuss made his way up
through the field and after a great pit stop found
himself among the top five. Cars with fresher tires
though soon pushed Seuss back further in the top
ten. In the end Seuss managed to pull off a ninth
place finish and was only one spot shy of a southern
modified win. “I really wanted to run in the top
five in the whole race but I am happy to come out
with a top ten for the whole race. We had a really
good car and after that whole pit stop situation
shook out we got back up to third. Then we got real,
real tight. We will put that in our notebook and
figure it out. Nothing changed on the stagger or
anything the tire just got tight. We are thinking
that maybe the stagger closed up or something but we
are real happy with a second. It was a good point’s
day and we managed to stay pretty clean throughout
the race. Somebody got my rear though when the field
checked up to avoid accidents. But overall we real
happy and the car is in one piece.”
Seuss has had an up and down time since loosing his
car owner late last year. But it now looks like
things have stabilized and are finally going in the
right direction. Seuss has joined George Brunnhoelzl
on the Harvey team and things are working out good
for the new team. “This year has been unreal. The
second that I walked in the shop, the only thing I
could think of was if you want to be real serious
with a modified this is the place where you have to
do it. In the shop you could eat off the floor. You
could even eat off the cars. I did not know how a
teammate situation would go. I have never been in
one. And they are more helpful than I ever would
have thought. I am having a blast. If it were not
for a late race wreck at Bowman Grey, I would have
three top fives in out first three races. So I am
real happy about that and just want to build on it.”
The NASCAR Whelen Southern Tour heads to Caraway
Speedway Friday night, August 26th while the NASCAR
Whelen Modified Tour goes international with a trip
to Delaware (Ontario) Speedway September 4th.. |
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Source: Polly Reid & Denise DuPont / TheChromeHorn.com
Posted: August
26, 2011 |
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