The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour held its second event of the 2020 season Saturday at White Mountain Motorsports Park in North Woodstock, N.H. It was the first visit to the quarter-mile bullring in the 36-year history of the series.
Now it looks like the second visit to the track for the series will happen in short order.
Multiple sources close to the Whelen Modified Tour and White Mountain Motorsports Park confirmed to RaceDayCT that NASCAR is looking to schedule a return visit to White Mountain for the series on Aug. 1.
Whelen Modified Tour series director Jimmy Wilson said Wednesday he couldn’t comment on any current scheduling additions being pursued. Sources indicated the event could be announced as soon as later today or Thursday.
White Mountain, which is not a NASCAR sanctioned track, was not on the original 2020 Whelen Modified Tour schedule. Saturday’s event was announced as an addition to the schedule on June 16.
Justin Bonsignore won Saturday’s Independence Day 200 at White Mountain. Bonsignore also won the only other Whelen Modified Tour event run this year on June 21 at Jennerstown (Pa.) Speedway.
The NASCAR Cup Series is scheduled to run the Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 on Sunday Aug. 2 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, about an hour south of White Mountain Motorsports Park.
The next event on the current Whelen Modified Tour schedule is Aug. 7 at Stafford Motor Speedway. Indications are that event will likely be postponed or cancelled due to state mandated crowd restrictions in place for Stafford Speedway. Stafford management announced on June 29 that one of their Open 80 Tour Type Modified events would be run on Saturday Aug. 1.
COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns have decimated the original 2020 Whelen Modified Tour schedule.
The Whelen Modified Tour was originally slated to open its 2020 season at South Boston (Va.) Speedway on March 21. That event was postponed indefinitely. The series was then scheduled to run the Liquid Death Icebreaker 150 at Thompson Speedway on April 5. That event was originally postponed to May 16, then postponed indefinitely and ultimately cancelled.
The originally scheduled third event of the season, the NAPA Spring Sizzler 200 at Stafford Speedway, slated for April 26, was first postponed to May 31 and now remains postponed indefinitely.
In addition to being on the schedule currently for Aug. 7, Stafford is also currently scheduled to host the NAPA Fall Final 150 on Sept. 27.
It was announced on June 29 that Thompson Speedway will host the Whelen Modified Tour on Aug. 19 and Oct. 11 with the events run by a new operational group led by the track’s former general manager Terry Eames.
The Whelen Modified Tour had added an event to the schedule to be run May 30 at Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Speedway but it was ultimately postponed due to weather. NASCAR has not rescheduled that event.
Whelen Modified Tour events at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway (May 8), New Hampshire Motor Speedway (July 18) and Iowa Speedway (July 31) have all been cancelled.
The June 6 event Seekonk (Mass.) Speedway and July 11 event at Wall (N.J.) Stadium have been postponed indefinitely.
The event scheduled for June 20 at Riverhead (N.Y.) Raceway has been postponed to Oct. 17, with Riverhead still scheduled to also host the series on Sept. 19.
The Whelen Modified Tour Musket 200, as part of Full Throttle Weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, remains scheduled for Sept. 12. A Sept. 5 event at Oswego (N.Y.) Speedway also remains scheduled.
That is the rumor. Kudos to Nascar for leaving July 25th and TT alone. Another trip to the pool (and the track) for this guy.
This seems way too obvious to me. So if Stafford’s WMT150 on 8/7 isn’t going to happen, why not schedule the WWMP event on 8/8, instead of scheduling it directly on a Stafford race date on 8/1? Stafford is doing what they can given the pandemic to hold events and have supported the WMT with multiple events every year. Now you’re going to schedule directly against them?
It’s a Saturday. The night before cup race.
Big Bully on the playground. Now NASCAR is scheduling a tour date to conflict with Stafford’s Open 80. But remember,NASCAR has everybody’s best interests at heart. Yeah Right.
Fast Eddie, White Mountain has a 250-lap, $10,000-to-win ACT Late Model Tour event on August 8. They would have to find another place to put that in order to host the Modified Tour on that date.
Nascar and Stafford are always talking. Especially this year. I’m sure Stafford is aware of all this already. They can leave it as is or bounce the open to Aug 8th and all is good. Stafford hasn’t even announced the rest of their schedule yet so obviously everything is subject to change. Aug 1st was a makeup date as it was anyway for the Open. Stafford may have held off on a schedule for this very reason. The pandemic wasn’t NASCAR’s fault and they have repeatedly said everything and anything is on the table. Also, maybe Aug 8th wasn’t good for WMMP. We live in some messed up times right now. It’s just the way 2020 is going. There has to be some give and take. I’m sure the WMT drivers are stoked. I don’t think many of them will be complaining after last week’s successful event at WMMP.
Maybe Ryan Preece (or others) will be available for this one now. Another plus.
Mike, or WMMP could do what they just did, moving the ACT portion of their event to Friday in order to accommodate the WMT on Saturday, and splitting the weekly classes between the two nights. I’m guessing ultimately that would force Stafford to move their Open to a different Saturday. But maybe the WMT could work WITH the racetracks to set these dates up. Not just the one with the potential WMT date that isn’t part of NASCAR yet, but also with the tracks who have loyally been part of NASCAR for many years that are trying to make a living. It just doesn’t seem right to me for NASCAR to step on other track schedules to run their events, particularly on where a number of “their” drivers run at weekly.
Fast Eddie, I’m guessing White Mountain was able to make the shuffle work for the most recent event because 1. It was a holiday weekend where most people had Friday off anyway, and 2. The actual ACT Tour wasn’t involved with that event — just the weekly Late Models. (Which do use ACT rules, but don’t have any impact on the touring championship.) Neither of those things apply in this case. Add in that’s one of the biggest events of the year for ACT, and it becomes a lot harder to reschedule. White Mountain is owned by the same people who own ACT, so they’re obviously not going to give the ACT Tour the shaft when it comes to scheduling.
NASCAR is scheduling events at NON NASCAR sanctioned tracks because they will pay for a NASCAR event to be held at their track. Stafford said no when NASCAR asked them to pay when they can not have fans. Good for them. NASCAR took money from Jennerstown track owners, raised entry fees, team Members paid entry fees and took money from Doug Dunleavy. Oh yea…then they cut the purse. NASCAR is making more money now than they did in 2019. This will go on until someone with a pair steps up and starts a series where a Spek engine can be competitive and has a decent officiating crew and runs the NASCAR boys back to NC where they belong.
CT has just indefinitely postponed Phase 3 reopening. And CT has a 25% capacity cap the limits the gate and that impedes the ability to underwrite the NWMT. And given that CT was hit very hard by the pandemic, it is not a good idea to violate any crowd rules.
NWMT needs to find tracks that can run and have large enough crowds to get a decent gate. Forget sanctioning. Look no further than NH, northern NH to be specific. What happened at WMMP was not good, too many people and not enough masks.
Set another daily case record, death rate is turning up.
Ivy League schools called off all sports.
Trump says schools will open in the fall. So that means schools will not open in the fall.
Wash your hands, wear a mask, social distance.
How about Hudson in nh? Or Claremont? Claremont had a HUGE crowd on Friday. None of the NASCAR tracks can get talked into this? We have 4 in New Hampshire
Mike, you’re right, there was no ACT event on 7/3. HOWEVER, they did have the PASS Pro Stock/Super Late Models running that night. The Friday night show was originally scheduled for Saturday, and it was bumped to Friday to bring in the Modifieds.
And now the Stafford WMT race on 8/7 is cancelled.
Fast Eddie, I took a look at the PASS website, and they’re now scheduled to have their Super Late Models and Modifieds on Sunday, August 9 at White Mountain. So the track may well have decided that, with the big ACT event on the 8th, two PASS divisions on the 9th, and all the weekly classes, there’s just no more room at the inn that weekend.
Even so, I doubt they would move the ACT deal from Saturday to Friday. It’s one thing to do something like that when it’s a holiday weekend and people have the day off anyway. It’s another when all your drivers, crew members, race-day staff, and fans suddenly have to get unexpected time off from their day jobs or reschedule family commitments. And not all of them would be able to, even with a month’s notice. That hurts the people who support your track weekly, and in this case, it would also hurt one of the biggest events of the year for a major regional series owned by the same people who own the track. While I’m sure White Mountain’s owners will be happy to have the Modifieds back, I’m also sure they’re not willing to do it at the expense of a series they also own.
I like this Capt Qbvious guy !!
getserious, I don’t know if that was directed at me or if it was actually a compliment, but I think I’ll keep the name if you don’t mind.
🌈JD🌈 posted, “That is the rumor.”
Yeah, there’s a rumor that the Sun is gonna rise in the east tomorrow.
To quote Rick Pitino, the attitude in this town sucks.
Two races through July and Nascar is making money hand over fist. LOL Good one.
I’m starting to think people liked it better when the pandemic left us with no racing. Now we have Tour Mods racing almost every weekend and people are crying louder than before.
Does NASCAR realize Loudon is in New Hampshire and there’s a lot more room for people to distance, reschedule the July race that was supposed to happen to the Saturday before cup. Even beyond that there are other tracks in New Hampshire and Vermont is allowing fans now and thunder road is the same ownership.
Rob, if Nascar is such the bully, why did Stafford announce an Open race for Aug 22nd yesterday? The previously announced date for the WMT to return to Jennerstown? Nobody is crying about that. My guess is Stafford probably doesn’t care. Otherwise they would have scheduled it for another day. These conflicts work both ways. It is not just Nascar scheduling on top of other tours and tracks. I apologize for inserting facts into your pity party.