It was a decision that set off whispered questions among those in the Modified racing community.
Saturday the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour returned to action with the running of the Laurel Highlands 150 at Jennerstown (Pa) Speedway, but missing from the pit area was driver Ron Silk and the Kevin Stuart Motorsports team he competes for.
Silk and team owner Kevin Stuart confirmed that the decision not to make the long haul to Jennerstown had nothing to do with any type of trouble within the organization.
“It was just a business decision between me and Ronnie not go,” Stuart told RaceDayCT. “Everything is fine. Me and Ronnie are fine. We’re going to finish out the rest of the year and go from there. Next year hopefully we’ll have a full season without all the [stuff] going on.”
Before the upheaval of the 2020 schedule due to restrictions from the COVID-19 global pandemic, Silk and the Kevin Stuart Motorsports team were optimistic they would be chasing a Whelen Modified Tour title this year.
A 27th place finish due to mechanical issues in the second race of the season on July 4 at White Mountain Motorsports Park in North Woodstock, N.H. essentially wiped away those championship hopes. Silk, the 2011 Whelen Modified Tour champion, was 11th in the standings, 45 points off the lead, before Saturday’s event at Jennerstown.
“It’s a shortened season,” Silk said. “Obviously you get behind in the points in a regular year and it’s hard to make that ground back up. But in a shortened year it’s nearly impossible. Just for cost factor of what it would cost to go to Jennerstown and the return on that … we just kind of made a decision ‘Let’s take this one off and we’ll go back to the one’s that are close.’”
The team will return to action for Saturday’s Whelen Modified Tour event at Monadnock Speedway in Winchester, N.H.
Said Stuart: “We’re not fighting. We’re fine. We’ll be at Monadnock Saturday and we’ll finish off the year up here.”
Silk was also missing from the lineup in the Lincoln Tech Open Modified 80 Friday at Stafford Speedway. Silk has been running the Open Modified events this year at Stafford for Pennsylvania based team owner Tyler Haydt. With the Stuart team originally planning to head to Jennerstown, Silk and Haydt had made the decision to skip the event at Stafford.
“I had told Tyler … and the guys I drive for at Stafford, that I had to go to Jennerstown,” Silk said. “So we kind of decided last minute not to go to Jennerstown. It was just going to be too hard to do both. Tyler ended up going on vacation. So the only reason I wasn’t at Stafford was because I had planned on going to Jennerstown.”
Solomito made the same business decision not to go to Jennerstown. Makes sense if you are out of the points with only a handful of events left.
If you don’t have a Robert Yates engine you are playing from behind anyway. These engines may be more of a factor than the car builder.
🌈 JD🌈 , the SPEC engine is a Robert Yates engine. Robert Yates Racing Engines is the NASCAR DESIGNATED SOLE SUPPLIER of the SPEC engine and all the parts. The parts are all coded and marked so they can’t be altered or replaced with a non-Robert Yates Racing Engines supplied parts. Major work MUST be done and documented by Robert Yates Racing Engines. The local engine guy is relegated to assembly and some minor work. I believe a local shop can do a valve job but only with official RYR supplied tools. No modifications allowed.
Last time through the pits, I saw all competitive cars, and then some, were running a SPEC. Even the 01 runs a SPEC.
It’s all in the rule book.
Glad to know their decision was a business decision and there are no internal issues within the team. I think they made some great progress last year and hope to see that continue. With the racing schedules being made and changed from one minute to the next, it’s understandable that many teams are looking at the big picture for this year and adjusting to what will work for them, maybe passing on opportunities this year to ultimately plan on “getting after it” next year.
Money Matt will be at Monadnock in the PeeDee 60. He will be in his red 60 at Claremont.
Judging by the current forecast for Saturday, Monadnock might be happening on Sunday.
Oh Oswego, we hardly knew you!!!!
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“Dennis Duffy is with Matt Hirschman and James Schaefer.
19h ·
Doubleheader weekend on the horizon….Friday it’s the $10k to win Maurice Enterprises open Modified 100 by The Racing Guys @ Claremont Motorsports Park live on Speed51.com. Saturday it’s the the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Advanced Gas Distributors Inc 200 Wade Cole Memorial @ Monadnock Speedway live on NBC Sports Gold Track Pass. #matthirschmanmotorsports #peedeemotorsports.”
How sweet it is!!