(Press Release from Seekonk Speedway)
Seekonk Speedway and The Modified Touring Series are proud to announce that a date has been schedule for the new Open Wheel touring series based out of New Hampshire. The Modified Touring Series will be joining the storied history of the Venditti family owned Seekonk Speedway for the 2017 season on June 10th.
“We are excited to be joining the Venditti family in their 70+ year family tradition of racing at Seekonk Speedway on June 10 of 2017. Seekonk Speedway has a standard of excellence in New England for short track racing that we, at the Modified Touring Series, are honored to be a part of in 2017 and hopefully many years to come.”- Gary Knight (MTS)
The Modified Touring Series “MTS” is committed to bringing a program to race tracks in the North East that is entertaining for the fans as well as having a program that is not only enjoyable but beneficial to the teams that support MTS.
Seekonk becomes the fourth date released in a proposed 12 race inaugural schedule. The Modified Touring Series season kicks off at Monadnock Speedway on April 29th.
“We are hoping to see some great modified racing from the new tour. We are excited as a track to help promote a new series and continue to be a part of the growth of short track racing in New England.” states Ed St Germain, Director of Business Development at Seekonk. “ This will be our first open wheel show of the season followed by Open Wheel Wednesday on June 28th and the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour later in the season.”
“The Modified Touring Series has some innovative new ideas that we look forward to being a part of for years to come “ says David Alburn, Competition Director at Seekonk Speedway “ the Speedway looks forward to being there at the start of something that has the potential to be great”.
Seekonk Speedway is a 1/3 mile paved oval NASCAR sanctioned track featuring weekly racing on Friday & Saturday nights featuring Pro Stocks, ACT Late Models, Street Stocks, Sport Trucks, INEX Legends, Sport Fours, Pure Stocks & INEX Bandoleers.
The Seekonk Speedway races from the first Sunday in May till Columbus Day weekend every year.
D. Anthony Venditti, “The Godfather of New England Auto Racing,” began construction of Seekonk Speedway in 1945. On May 30, 1946, the gates were opened for the first time. D. Anthony owned, operated, and promoted the Speedway until his death in 1991. Anthony received the promoter of the year award in 1978. His wife Irene continued till her passing in 2014, her son Francis, and grandson David continue the tradition of operating the speedway. Know as the “Action track of the East” Seekonk Speedway has been family owned, operated, and promoted for over 70 consecutive years.
Put another way, the MTS has assumed four VMRS dates thus far. Not looking good for the ole VMRS. I hear the fat lady singing. I’ve heard the MTS is only paying 3k to win, $660 to start with a $40,000 point fund.That’s a far cry from $15,000 to win. All four dates could conflict with WMT. That’s a little risky.
I’m very happy to hear the OWW and WMT are returning in 2017. Those are my can’t miss events at the Cement Palace.
Did I miss something in this article? I see the MTS is announcing a confirmed a “date” at Seekonk on June 10th and opening at Mad Dog on April 29th, but what about the other two dates being listed as “released”? The release mentions Open Wheel Wed but does not specifically mention the MTS maybe I misinterpreted the release. If so that still leaves at least one other two confirmed date. Also what are the other 8 dates that are proposed?
Where does it say $15K to win? Maybe I missed it.
To Just Wondering; I think the other two confirmed dates are also at Mad Dog about the same time as their usual VMRS races, early July and late August. I would guess Open Wheel Wednesday will still be a TriTrack race, as the track is “just down the road” from one of the new series directors.
Read and learn >> http://www.modtouringseries.com/
July1 and Sept 16th are the other Dog’ dates. The 15k this year was a one shot deal .
IF IF IF the tire cost and rules are on the real side AND the officials play the game straight
this series just might take off. (And another series might have to suffer for it)
3k to win and you can pay your tire bill back to at least twelfth looks promising.
Pee on the Tour
The 2016 MTS race paid $15,000 to win. The 2017 events are reportedly paying $3000 to win. My point being that there is a big drop in pay for 2017.
Fast Eddie, thanks for the heads up.Any idea on the other 8 proposed dates. IMO, it looks to me like MTS is making it no secret they are targeting VMRS dates. Does anyone really think there really needs to be 4 different modified racing series?
If 50 teams showed up for $15k to win then you would probably see another event just like it. Unfortunately any series that desires sustainability needs to build from the ground up. What was the purse for the VMRS events and how does the MTS compare?
These are the teams that have committed to the MTS for 2017 so far. There’s been a few drivers added each day for the past week or so on their Facebook page:
Kevin Stuart Motorsports
Jon McKennedy
Tommy Barrett
Chris Pasteryak
Anthony Nocella
Steve Masse
Kirk Alexander
Richard Savary
Todd Patnode
Mike Holdridge
Todd Annarummo
Joe Doucette
Adam Norton
Carl Medeiros Jr.
Rob Richardi Jr.
Jeffrey Gallup
David Schneider
Dana Smith
Scott MacMichael
Nathan Johnson
TJ Bleau
Seeing as how Mr. Knight originally tried to buy the VMRS, competing for their race dates must be his “plan B”. I thought I remembered reading somewhere that the VMRS race winner gets about $2300, so the MTS gives teams a 25% increase. I don’t remember there being any controversy with officiating the MTS race last year, so that’s another plus. I don’t know what the VMRS points fund money is, but the MTS $40K points fund has got to be enticing to the racers as well.
Folks, forget the $15k number. That was for a one-off open event. It was successful, it lured people in.
Now things get focused toward a tour, more races and purses that are SUSTAINABLE for a tour consisting of numerous races.
Forget the $15k number, unless the MTS season is going to be a one-shot wonder open show.
Say goodbye to VMRS.
I would feel a lot better about this if there were some credible people involved management wise.
I like Fast racecars…..and Nascar mods are the fastest Mods.
Bill Realist… apparently Art Barry and Eddie Flemke are involved. Don’t know if that makes you feel any better
Some Guy, the fastest cars do not always win. The TTOMS series proved that at a number of races. They have seen winners from WMT, ROC, & VMRS. Even an SK car has won at an “open” event. For me, as long as there is a good competitive race, a few MPH lower or higher is really noticeable, particularly on some of the smaller tracks.
The names of the Teams/Driver listed above who have committed to the new MTS looks like a roster of a starting lineup from the VMRS event.
Correction to my post: Speed doesn’t matter much on the smaller tracks. I’d bet the difference between the WMT and VMRS speeds at Seekonk are pretty small, if not nonexistent.
Gerry D: Yes, very much so. Makes you wonder who will be running with the VMRS.
According to the list of drivers posted above and the announced MTS race dates, it doesn’t look like there is going to be much of a Valenti Modified series next season. The list is a who’s who of the Valenti series. I guess the drivers and tracks are speaking volumes by supporting this new series over the established series. Too many good people have tried to run or support the Valenti series only to give up and leave frustrated.
I think this new series really has some potential with Nascar’s decision to combine the North and Southern modifieds which will potentially significantly increase travel costs. Perhaps some of the smaller teams see this and the tri track as a better alternative to Nascar. The purses are supposed to be higher but if tracks arent willing to pay them there will be no dates for a Nascar tour. I don’t know where the increase can come from. Local tracks are already charging upwards of $35-50 for general admission. In past years, Nascar had to go to a what I believe they called a “flash” show which had reduce purses and laps to get some of the smaller tracks to entertain the idea of hosting events in the past. I am really interested in seeing how all the changes unfold in 2017. There are certainly a lot of changes going into 2017.
Stafford put up a Twitter poll the other day asking if Twitter followers would like to see the MTS at SMS next year.
There might be more interest out there from track management than folks think.
This series won’t have any affect on the WMT. Just like the MRS never did. Not sure why people think the admission prices are higher for WMT. Tri Track charges the same admission price as the tour. Thompson being the lone exception. The MTS will need a lot more juice behind them if they are planning to charge $30 or more to pay their purses.
Stafford’s Twitter hinting that they may be adding MTS events.
I was looking for the VMRS obituary in the paper this morning. It’s only proper to pay your respects when a death occurs.
Does anybody have the link to the new article where Jack Bateman rips on Gary and the MTS. On the MTS Facebook all the teams who raced the 15k to win show last year are posting how they were paid promptly and in full and that the race was professionally run. So it seems like they are sticking up for Gary. I am real curious to see what Jack said… sounds like someone’s nervous!
I just saw this on the MTS website:
“We, at MTS, are proud to announce the members of our Competition Committee: Art Barry, John McKennedy, Charlie Pasteryak, Rob Walendy and Kirk Alexander.”
It looks like Mr. Knight and co. have assembled an impressive and highly qualified group of people to assure fairness and a level playing field.
Well I hope for their sake they don’t get burned by this guy. It wouldn’t be the first time in motorsports history that highly respect veterans got involved and screwed in the end. We will see and hope for the best I guess.
jack has nobody to blame except himself ….at one time they had a great thing …but greed and not being able to to grow some balls and remove one rock that destroyed and made a joke of everything he built…. again its all on him ….just ask the 5000 race directors that have been threw that mess …they all say the same thing ….
So what is “the rock”? In my day if a rock was in the way we just picked it up by hand or moved it with a machine to a place out of the way where it couldn’t cause any damage.
I’m still waiting for someone to fill in the blanks about the rest of the proposed schedule aside from the cement palace and the Mad Dog. Maybe one of the MTS owners or officials can chime in?
Nobody is going to say anything. It’s secret competition information. Trump never reveals his plans.
Just Wondering, I think the MTS is still trying to set up other dates. Based on MH mark’s comment above, maybe there will be one or more at Stafford. I would guess the tracks that are still planning to have WMT dates are waiting on NASCAR before committing to other events.
The MTS also released a bunch of names who were supposed to show up for the 15K to win show at Monadnock, how accurate did that list end up being?
Also, Knight at one time claimed he wouldn’t start up a series to rival MRS and that there weren’t enough cars to support all of these modified touring series.
If you folks check Gary Knight’s background, you will find he is not the most credible person to run a series. Unfortunately due to the health of short track pavement racing today, it is only attracting these type of snake oil salesmen for the most part.
Jack Bateman stated this week he will have a 14 race schedule in 2017. Sounds like the few name guys they have had have already jumped to MTS. What a mess. Honestly, I think Jack has had the carpet pulled out from under him and he didn’t see it coming. Especially with Monadnock,Seekonk and possibly Stafford all jumping ship. Not enough cars for all these series. Only the strong survive I suppose.
I agree with Andy. The only reason Dopey Donald Trump is where he is is because the Republican party is a mess, and anyone that could spin a story would take over. That’s what Dopey Donald did. Dopey Donald is promising to make everyone rich, and they believe him.
The NWMT is the top tier, but there is discontent. So others are trying to get an alternative going. Good for them, but they have the same challenge: bring in sponsor $$$$$. Without sponsor $$$$, it will be very difficult.
Say good bye to MRS, hello to MTS. But watch out for the Tri-Track. Tri-Track showed that with decent purses, the cars came out. When the cars come out, the event is pretty darn good. There has to be decent purses, and Tri-Track does a great job raising the funds. It is baffling that a couple guys literally do a better job at promoting their little series and delivering serious purses than NASCAR does at promoting the NWMT.
So to me it sounds like the MTS last year and Tri Track Series the last two years are bringing much better purses to the racers and making the shows much more affordable for the race tracks to host their races. Why wouldn’t the racetracks host their events? Most these events have many of the same drivers and teams without the boring timetrials. What does NASCAR do to help the racetracks or racers ? Does anyone know? My guess is they do little if anything but collect their piece of the pie and move on to the next event where they do the same.
The MRS & MTS can both survive, Most drivers will run events that don’t conflict, same with Tri-Track, who I think put on the best show. The WMT has the best payout throughout the field & point fund but are on overkill with excessive schedules & rules.
I can’t wait for next year to begin but I need time to recover/rest.
Dareal, you’re right with the TriTrack crew and their ability to raise money. I’d bet it’s because they are recruiting many smaller sponsors instead of trying to find one or two large sponsors. And many of those “sponsors” are die hard fans, not companies. Hopefully they can continue making that work. And thank God for Whelen! Without them there probably wouldn’t be a WMT.
So tentatively there will be 3-5 Tritrack, 14 VMRS, 12 MTS, and maybe 15 WMT events. That’s an awful lot of events for a 7 month, 28-30 week racing season. Many racers and spectators will have some choices to make.
Fast Eddie, TriTrack actually does recruiting, promoting, marketing, etc. NASCAR is still stuck in the days when sponsors were tripping over themselves and each other to get into the show. That ain’t the way it is today. NASCAR has got to learn to sell itself. It is still so arrogant.
Dareal, I couldn’t agree with you more! To me, NASCAR is still reluctant to enter the 21st century. There are so many more options for sponsors to spend there advertising dollars on, and they’re all focused on ROI; return on investment. And with live streaming via the internet, I don’t think being on TV is the great selling tool it once was. NASCAR seems to be content with their TV deals, which are fine for the big three, but what about the regional and grassroots series? Without them eventually you have no big three!
{The MRS & MTS can both survive}
I wouldn’t wager much on that. Now that teams have an alternative to the Uncle Jack Show I’d bet
a number of teams will say bye- bye. I know a bunch of officials, past and current have. It’s up to Gary not to blow it. Competition is ALWAYS a good thing and if the rumored Stafford race gets scheduled it gives the MTS some credibility right out of the box. The Tour will continue with low twenty something car counts I think and NE Modified fans will make their choices.
Good luck Mr. Knight
with your venture.
Further proof that there is no such thing as “trickle down”.
What I don’t get it…is what happened to having a real business…oh yeah it was foreclosed and equipment auctioned off, house bank foreclosed on. OH and whatever did happen to the LAP $$$ for the race last year??? Did it get pocketed??? Is that what he’s living on for the time being. I’m sure someone has run a background check on him by now. He’s just a joke. Not a good business man. I feel bad for the racers. There the ones that are going to get screwed.
The racers banking on Gary Knight didn’t learn their lesson from Bobby MacArthur.