Darling Racing To Run Part-Time Schedule On Whelen Modifed Tour In 2014 With Doug Coby

Driver Doug Coby and his Wayne Darling owned NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour team chased championships the last two years in the division.

Doug Coby celebrates his Whelen Modified Tour CarQuest 150 victory in August at Stafford Speedway (Photo: Jim Rogash/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Doug Coby celebrates his Whelen Modified Tour CarQuest 150 victory in August at Stafford Speedway (Photo: Jim Rogash/Getty Images for NASCAR)

But barring a partner arriving on the scene, the group will focus solely on chasing victories as a part-time organization on the Whelen Modified Tour next year.

Coby, who won his first Whelen Modified Tour title in 2012 and finished second to Ryan Preece in the standings in 2013, said his team is preparing to run only a portion of the schedule in 2014.

“I don’t even know if it would be a half season,” Coby said. “I guess it would just depend on the schedule and what races are close to each other.”

In 2011 Coby ran a full season on the Whelen Modified Tour splitting time between Darling’s organization and a team owned by George Bierce. In 2012 Darling, a longtime part-time owner on the Modified Tour, ran his first full-time year as a team owner and was rewarded with the series championship. The team returned to run full-time in 2012.

But Coby said with crew chief John McKenna being forced to cut back his schedule with the team because of work obligations, and some other personnel moves within the team, the decision was made to cut back for next year.

“So it’s just a couple little changes that are going to prevent them from preparing a full-time car as well as they would want to and they certainly don’t want to run full-time and have us fall off because we’re not prepared,” Coby said. “So we’ll be back to part-time unless we can team up with somebody and figure something out and consider doing something full-time. But … it would really have to be the right situation with the right equipment and the right personnel.”

Coby had a series-high five victories and 11 top-10’s in 14 events in 2012 on the way to the Whelen Modified Tour title. Before the 2012 season Coby had two Modified Tour victories over his first 116 starts in the series dating back to 2002.

He had two wins in 2013 and 10 top-10’s in 13 series starts. He finished the year 31 points behind Preece in the standings. Coby started 13 of 14 events on the season. He missed the start in the first event of the season at Riverhead (N.Y.) Raceway on June 29 after a crash in qualifying. He was awarded points for a last place finish (28th) in the event.

“I’d still like to be in that [championship] conversation,” Coby said. “I think the last two years we have really showed something. Even this year, if a couple things went in a different direction this year I think we could have made off with a second [championship] in a row. It sucks for that not to be able to continue, but it’s so hard to run in the top three in points. Once you find yourself there after like six races, everybody just kind of focuses on that. You know, when you’re stepping back a little bit anyway, it kind of just makes it that much easier to focus on just putting a good car together to win races as opposed to thinking big picture all that time.”

“As far as I’m concerned, I know that I still will have a car that I know I can go out and win every race we run with. I’m fine with that.”

But Coby is hoping the offseason will produce a partner team that could help put him back in a spot to chase another title.

“You never know when people know what’s going on what might happen,” Coby said. “A lot of people know what’s going on and people have ideas. There could be some new interest from people that you don’t expect. I’m not thinking anything spectacular is going to come up, but you never know.”

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Comments

  1. 🙁

  2. wayne darling says

    wayne darling says:

    November 6, 2013 at 9:08 am

    ok time to respond with our team it not about purses it about help in the shop getting ready to go to the races race day help is not a problem,cant prep cars in ffour days with just one guy and a seventy something [ being nice here] helper,. most teams you talk with will say same thing ,we need people who enjoy racing and want to be apart of it not only at track but in the shop. also.have to much respect to ask peopole to give up family time to seven days a week to get race cars ready . bottom line is we need crew member that want to work on race cars in my case when were at the track i pay all expenses.so you can all say its nascar fault but in my cvase its not

  3. Ron Manfredo says

    Well said Wayne abo
    out time someone told the truth good help is hard to find and thats what you need commited help which is tuff on familys your a class act Ron Manfred

  4. Nascar needs to be set with purses for you guys that reward you for time and equipment costs how can you race and lose money

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