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BONSIGNORE
BESTS FIELD FOR BUD 150 WIN
Thompson
Speedway Motorsports Park
by
Polly Reid |
 Surviving
a late race caution, Justin Bonsignore of
Holtsville, NY in the Ken Massa owned, M3 Technology
sponsored Chevrolet held off a stout field of
competitors as he brought the field to green for the
final three circuits to score his first win of the
2016 season in the NWMT Budweiser King of Beers 150
at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park.
Coors Light Pole winner Doug Coby of Milford, CT was
second at the line with Bobby Santos of Franklin, MA
third, Woody Pitkat of Stafford, CT fourth and Ryan
Preece of Berlin, CT fifth.
 “I
just can’t thank everybody enough,” said Bonsignore
in victory lane. “Ken Massa, Billy Michaels, this
whole team, Phoenix Communication came on board -the
guys nailed the pit stop, they got us off first of
the guys that took three- I’m at a loss for words
here, it’s been almost a year since I won and that
was really starting to eat at me, it was tough.
We’re back tonight, we’ve shown we can run with
these guys- the second half, we’re going to make a
charge for the championship.”
Bonsignore qualified third for the Bud 150 making
his move to pass Ron Silk for second on lap 22.
Meanwhile, Doug Coby in the Mike Smeriglio III
owned, Dunleavy Repair/A&J Romano Construction
sponsored Chevrolet was dominating the event
stretching his lead by up to twelve car lengths by
the time Bonsignore moved into second. While
Bonsignore appeared to be making gains, Coby was on
rails keeping a strong distance between the lead and
the rest of the field.
The first caution of the night on lap 54 gathered up
the action as Coby, Bonsignore, Silk, Chase Dowling
and Woody Pitkat the top five led the way with the
field following down pit road. The pits became a
sudden flurry of activity with the field in for
service.
 Chase
Dowling, Eric Goodale, Rob Summers were the first
three off pit road with Bonsignore and Coby
following for the top five.
As Dowling brought the field to green on lap 61, by
lap 62, Coby had passed Dowling on the backstretch
for the lead with Bonsignore on the heels of Coby.
Within five circuits, Coby and Bonsignore, nose to
tail, made it a two car breakaway. Santos had made
his way to third with Silk and last Friday night’s
winner at Stafford, Jimmy Blewett the top five on
lap 67.
Bonsignore made his move for the lead tucking low
heading into turn three, side by side Coby, emerging
the new leader on lap 74. At the half way mark, it
was Bonsignore, Coby, Santos, Silk, Blewett, Timmy
Solomito, Ryan Preece, Woody Pitkat, Donny Lia and
Brendon Bock the top ten.
Now, it was Coby on the heels of Bonsignore with
Santos in the hunt, Silk and Blewett the top five by
lap 100 as the long green run continued. Bonsignore
led the way working lap traffic, while Coby filled
his rear view mirror. The second caution of the
night on lap 126 was for Silk up against the turn
one outside wall. As Silk pulled away, the field
gathered up for the double file restart with now 17
to go.
Bonsignore on the outside, nailed the lap 133
restart taking Santos, Pitkat and Preece with him
while Coby in the bottom groove, was shuffled back
in line to fifth. “You know how it works here,” said
Coby. “You spin the tires on the bottom. Bobby spun
the tires on the bottom too, it’s just how it goes.”
The field was pulled back in for the third and final
caution of the night on lap 142 when contact spun
the #75 of Shawn Solomito in turn four.
A quick caution, it was now three to go to the
checkers.
 The
NWMT Bud 150 came down to a double file restart on
lap 147, Bonsignore, Santos, Pitkat, Coby and Preece
the top five came to the green. Bonsignore securely
in front had Coby on his bumper but Bonsignore was
not to be denied as he held off Coby and the rest of
the field- Bonsignore scored his ninth NWMT win, his
fourth at Thompson, his first for 2016.
Bonsignore, Coby, Santos, Pitkat and Preece the top
five, Max Zachem crossed for sixth with Ron Silk,
Donny Lia, Shawn Solomito and Jeff Goodale
completing the top ten.
“Today, we had a really good car,” said Bonsignore.
“We qualified up front, that was probably the
biggest thing. We’ve struggled to qualify because
we’ve gone out first or second all season. We
qualified third, stayed up there, got by Silk- Doug
was a little better than us the first set, we knew
that. Got the pit stop, we were the first car off
with three tires which is unbelievable, the guys are
awesome. I guess Doug was really tight to start that
second run- I wanted to put pressure on him to see
if he would burn his stuff up. Kind of what he did
to me last year where he had a better car and just
kind of toyed with me a little bit. Then I got a
good run, I figured I’d pass and try to drive away-
if he caught me we would duke it out at the end. We
were starting to edge it out a little bit- the
yellows probably helped just because I was able to
get really good restarts. The last one, I didn’t
want to see. It would have been nice to come back
and just finish that one out. Doug got a good run-
fourth is always such a good spot to start here- I
had to throw a block on them. When you have a car
like that, you just can’t give these things away,
they are hard to win. We want to be the guy that can
beat them. They are consistently the best team every
week- to beat them tonight is huge. It’s a
compliment to them because they are the best right
now. We are trying hard to catch them and beat them,
it’s just really tough. Like I said, this is huge
for us, we really needed it.”
 “I
kind of thought if I could get him it would be on
the first lap of the restart,” said Coby about the
final yellow with three to go. “Get a run off of two
and dive bomb him going into three but Bobby got a
good enough run to stay underneath me going into
three – I did have a good enough run, I think, to
cut in front of Bobby and get down next to Justin,
but Bobby was good enough there too. Justin kind of
split the difference between the two of us and I
didn’t want to take any chances, I know how these
cars handle with three laps to go – I certainly
could have made some move and Bobby wouldn’t have
really had a choice but to get into my left rear- I
certainly didn’t want to have two races in a row
with a couple of laps left and end up with a bad
finish.”
“We’re happy to finish second,” said Coby. “It’s a
great day for us, we were second fastest in
practice, won the pole and finished second so you
can’t really complain. But it just sucks when things
like last week happened- tonight would not have been
a big deal if last week we had just taken care of
business. That’s how it goes.”
“Both restarts we were able to get a good run,” said
Bonsignore. “Doug had a good run on that second one,
I had to throw a little bit of a block but you have
to do what you have to do to win these races. It’s
probably the cleanest feature here in a long time.”
 “We
had the cautions we needed,” said Santos about how
the cautions fell. “I just screwed up on the last
restart, I just spun my tires a little bit. The
bottom is so hard on restarts here.” Santos echoed
what Coby had said earlier about restarting on the
bottom. “I’m very happy, it was a good run. We’ve
struggled up until lately, our team is going in the
right direction, doing a good job.” Santos took the
green flag fifth wheeling the Tino Corp/Dan
Kelley/Curb Records Chevrolet to third by the half
way mark. Santos remained in the hunt, just coming
up short at the end. “We were excellent right
through practice, we were just a little too free in
the race to really race with Doug and Justin. If we
had it just a little bit tighter I think we could
have challenged him. It was a good night, it’s been
a struggle, I’m happy with a third.”
The tenth race of seventeen in the NWMT season,
points matter. Coby continues to lead the way with
397, Bonsignore stays second with 382, Timmy
Solomito in third with 362, Donny Lia fourth with
354 and Jimmy Blewett fifth with 349.
Hats off to Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park for
their efforts getting the show in. If you missed it,
the NWMT Budweiser King of Beers 150 will air on
NBCSN Friday August 26th at 8pm ET.
Next Wednesday, August 17th the NWMT heads to
Bristol Motor Speedway for the combination race with
the NWSMT. The Chrome Horn will be there with Denise
DuPont’s live updates of the Bush’s Beans 150.
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Source:
Polly Reid / TheChromeHorn.com
Posted:
August 11, 2016 |
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