The Hunted: Doug Coby Picture Of Calm Heading Into Whelen Modified Tour Finale Sunday

THOMPSON – Rattling Doug Coby on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour this year has been a tough task for his competition in the series.

Doug Coby drives by the Whelen Modified Tour championship trophy Saturday in the pits at Thompson Speedway

And on the eve of Sunday’s title deciding event, there was clearly no shaking up any anxiety in the championship favorite Saturday at Thompson International Speedway.

“I’m a nervous [expletive] wreck, I’m biting off my fingernails,” Coby joked after Whelen Modified Tour qualifying. “What the [expletive] do you people want me to say?”

Coby was his normal relaxed self following Whelen Modified Tour qualifying Saturday at Thompson. The Milford driver will start ninth in Sunday’s Whelen Modified Tour World Series of Speedway Racing 150 at Thompson.

Coby goes into the event with a 17-point lead in the standings over Ryan Preece of Berlin and an 18-point advantage over 2011 series champion Ron Silk of Norwalk. Coby, who won a series high five events this year, needs only to finish 13th Sunday to guarantee the title no matter what Preece or Silk do.

“No anxiousness,” Coby said. “Yes I’ve looked up points. I do have a printout with where I would be with finishes, just to know. I don’t want to put it someone else’s hands and lose it by a point or two if it comes down to it. But, no anxiousness or nerves. It is what it is. We’ve had a great season. If we finish for some reason or third for some reason in points we still won five races so that’s kind of crazy. I’m pretty happy. Just my mindset is just keep being positive.”

Coby wasn’t worried about his car after practice and qualifying.

“It was decent in practice,” Coby said. “We kind of went a little bit backwards for our time trial mock run so then we changed it again for our real time trial and it was good. I thought it would have been better than ninth. I was kind of happy driving it, which sometimes I’m not happy driving it and we’re fast so I don’t know what the deal is. I was pleased with. We need a top-13 car and I know we have a top-13 car. I just don’t know if we’re going to get a top-13 finish.”

“I’m going to race with guys that I trust and if there’s guys that I don’t trust I’m going to stay away from them which I do that every race any way. So you won’t see me doing anything different unless it’s the last 10 laps and somebody has fresher tires and they’re pressuring me for a spot, I’ll let them go. That’s the smart thing to do. It really all depends on how good our car is.”