Tommy Barrett Jr. celebrates his first Whelen Modified Tour victory last August at Bristol Motor Speedway (Photo: Rainier Ehrhardt:Getty Images)
NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour team owner Chris Our arrived in the series in 2012 with no history in the division and quickly made it clear he was building an organization to be reckoned with.
Now Our is taking the steps to take that organization to a much larger stage.
Our will field a car part-time for Tommy Barrett Jr. on the ARCA Racing Series in 2015.
Barrett, of Millis, Mass., ran for Our last year on the Whelen Modified Tour.
Our said the optimistic vision is to see his motorsports organization take the route of running full-time with a national-tier division.
“If it worked that way it would be nice,” Our said. “But I can’t do it out of my own pocket. I feel like going this route will help me get to that point. All these races are televised. They’re all on Fox 1. They’re good weekend races where they an attract sponsors. We have a lot of good relations with sponsors too, but how much money does a sponsor really want to spend for my car running at a small track on a Saturday night like in [Winchester, N.H. at Monadnock Speedway]? They’re not going to get a lot of exposure out of it and there’s not a lot of return for them. It’s more relationships. Where moving this way you can give them a return.”
Our said he will cut his Whelen Modified Tour schedule back to running select events this season in the division with the 19-year old Barrett.
“We’ll run all the bigger races, probably Thompson [Speedway], Bristol [Motor Speedway], [New Hampshire Motor Speedway],” Our said. “Some of the smaller tracks I just don’t think we will.”
Our arrived in the division in 2012 fielding a car for half of the events that season for seven-time series champion Mike Stefanik. Our ran his first full-time season in the division with Stefanik in 2013 before replacing him with Barrett after the 2013 season.
Barrett finished 12th in the Whelen Modified Tour standings in 2014. He got his first series victory in the annual August event at Bristol [Tenn.] Motor Speedway. In 13 events he had three top-five’s and five top-10’s.
Our said he was happy with what he saw in his first season running with Barrett.
“Tommy is still a young man,” Our said. “He’s a teenager and it’s a work in progress off and on the track. I think the world of the boy, he’s like a son. I don’t mind putting the effort into him because I see the potential of what he has. Do I sit him down and talk to him in a harsh way? Definitely. The beginning of the year we went on for a little bit and I sat him down and I said ‘Time out, this isn’t how it’s going to be. This is how you’re going to put your head into this game or we’re moving on.’ And that’s when the year kind of turned. But again, he turned 19 in April so. I have a 20-year old myself so I know how they are. I think he has potential and I think people like him. I think they like his style and I think he will attract sponsors.”
Our said the team will participate in an ARCA test on January 16 at Daytona International Speedway before returning to the track for the ARCA season opener at Daytona on Feb. 14. Barrett participated in an ARCA test last month at Daytona. He has never started an event with the series.
“We purchased a speedway car,” Our said. “We’re going down to test on [January 16] and then we’re going to go back for the Daytona race and take it from there. The goal right now is to run from two to four races this year and see how it goes. The opening race will tell the story about where we’re at and how we’re going to do. We leased a fresh motor from a top team that should be very stout. It’s a real good piece. So we should be good that way. And it’s a beautiful car.”
Hopefully they would be smart enough to enter mostly the ARCA short track races besides the race in Daytona. Teams like this have zero shot on the bigger tracks next to the drivers getting backing from Cup teams or the perennial “rent a ride” teams in ARCA.
Like I told Mario, I am beyond excited for Tommy. I can’t wait to see him grow on this sport. He definitely has his head in the game & sponsors are going to see it.
Well there it is clear as a bell. To be successful in the big time the WMT is NOT the place
to be. GD shame I think. Glad for Tommy that Chris Our is willing to back him and I wish them both well. I just hope TB and company have learned from his off track “performance” at the NSS last year. If not his shot in ARCA will be short lived.
The kid is a talent though. Get after it Tommy.
Mark
Good luck with that. This team knows nothing about stock car racing. See where they end up in 3 years. Back racing mods full time. They need to find someone to help them with some credentials or they will ruin this kids racing career and he will be the next Cravenho type cast that the division destroys. Ton of talent with nothing to show for it. Hope I (we) are wrong.