The 2021 season will see a change in the landscape of Tour Type Modified events. As of this week the 2021 schedule sees 14 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour events, six Tri-Track Open Modified Series events, six Tour Type Open Modified events at Thompson Speedway, four Type Open Modified events at Stafford Speedway, three Modified Racing Series events and one Tour Type Open Modified event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Riverhead Raceway will likely have at least a pair of special event Tour Type races and more events are expected to be added to various track and series’ schedules. So what are your thoughts on the amount of Tour Type Modified racing available in 2021? Vote below.
Surprised to see”too many” in the early lead. The tritrack alway has good car counts. Staffords opens continue to get good turnouts. Thompson is an unknown but i think the purse will at least bring fields similar to stafford, maybe more cars with $5K. The icebreaker and world series may bring a good amount of wmt cars to the fields as well.
The more the MERRIER !!!! That way you can sit down and go thru all the Races, pick and CHOOSE what are your must see Races…. Martinsville would be on the top of my list , Followed by Sizzler. Icebreaker, NHIS , Oswego. Thompson 300. Open Wheel Wednesday Seekonk shows. SB 125 Star … As many as i can see…. A SMORGASBORD OF MODIFIED RACING…. It’s a PRESENT for all the Cancelled shows we had to endure in 2020… Enjoy it…
Probably too many considering Waterford and Claremont hasnt released their schedules and I am sure there will be a few more added when they release. I will say they are doing a pretty good job of working around each other, so they have a good chance of being successful.
How many Tour Type events at the Bowl in 2021? 3??
Rafter,
Hard to speak about anything at the Speedbowl in 2021. Management has been silent on social media and their web page concerning anything having to do with anything in 2021.
The number is not really that high. In the early days of of the Tour there sometimes close to 30 races in the series alone along with the Mods being a weekly division at quite a few tracks, plus open shows back then too.
Too many Wednesday Tour Type shows. Perfect amount of WMT shows.
Suitcase, you just summed it up right there. Fans are picking and choosing. That is NOT what any promoter wants to hear but it will be the harsch reality in 2021.
Not about number of shows for me but location, I just hope Claremont is able put on a show somehow but if not then it’s not the end of the world. The Racing Guys show there last August was simply amazing for the track, anyone and everyone that was even remotely interested in racing in the area up here was there and praising the event for how it gave them a glimpse of the glory days of the track. I hope they can repeat it. I’m starting to wonder if it could be in the fall because the GSPSS is scheduled for the Saturday of the fall challenge, leaving a potential headliner spot open for Sunday but it could end up being ISMA or 350 Supers because the track’s Facebook page was teasing supers a few weeks ago.
I agree with Suitcase Jake. The more races, the better. It’s nice to be able to pick and choose where to go see a race. So far it doesn’t look like any conflicting dates, so it may be possible to see multiple races in a week. As far as drivers go, most would race 7 days a week if they could.
There aren’t enough races in New England. Too infrequent and the indigenous New England race fan is going lose interest and find something else. The mods will not survive as a Touring series outside of New England, just isn’t going to happen. Remember the Southern Mod ‘Tour’? It was kept on life support way too many years. No reason to think the NWMT will succeed where the NSWMT, and others, failed.
JMB, there just aren’t the number of fans to support all those tracks and races anymore. We’ve talked about it here before. Maybe tracks need to add shuffleboard areas. There are no meaningful numbers of young replacement fans.
Yes – the Bowl remains the wildest of wild cards. After what appeared to be a successful relaunch in 2020, I hoped for a semi-early schedule announcement for 2021 – so much for that. The MRS may be the only Tour type option for the Speedbowl next season(?). Or, are Bateman and the Bowl no longer working together?
Easy for me ,I will not attend any WMT races.Very glad that Thompson is runnIng their Wednesday Night shows. Hopefully the car counts are good.I like the promoters and I will support them as well as Stafford’s Opens and most certainly the TTOMS
Again it ALLLL depends on car counts, some may be happy with 20 car fields, the 51 CAR TRI TRACK STAFFORD RACE has spoiled many into thinking thats what MOST open shows will bring, WRONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG, if yur happy with 20 cars then i say bravo, i hope alll races are a sucess and have good car counts
O M G
TriTrack has been drawing car counts in the mid to high 30’s. I’m sure that will continue. I think the $$ at Thompson will bring a good combination of Stafford and TriTrack cars, 25-30 anyway.
Only interested in seeing the fastest Mods which are the NWMT Mods. The rest are just fast SKs.
TriTrack events have been averaging mid to high 30’s car counts. Stafford’s Open car were mid 20’s. I’m guessing Thompson Opens may have somewhere in between, hopefully more!
Near as I can determine based on RaceDayCt reporting it was the Facebook page on 7/12/20 that was the first firm indication that racing would return to the Speedbowl. Finishing touches to the track and hiring employees mid to late July. The MRS race to be held on August 8th announced on July 27th.
At most it was a month advance notice after a having been closed the previous season from glimmers to a race day with a reshuffled track management depending on Facebook pretty much exclusively to promote it’s plans. And yet after a couple years they somehow produced cars and fans and had a successful re-opening in the year of the pandemic go figure.
Were it not for the pandemic it would be the most amazing story of 2020. Amazing fans for sure but more amazing the race teams that got almost no real advance notice and showed up anyway. After a couple years and having endured a spring of shut downs.
Announce a schedule now you ask. Why? They have proven it’s not really necessary and there is the owners appeal to be adjudicated so there’s that.
tri track has a unique niche in that you can be competitive with less motor. At the bigger tracks like stafford, thompson, and new hampshire it’s not so much like that, you won’t be compettitive if you’re down much on power. i think what kind of a season we have depends more on governmental restrictions than anything else, just have to wait and see.
TT averaged 30-32 cars in 2019. Mostly the same teams at every race that year. I don’t count anything that happened in 2020 as reality because the season didn’t really start until July for anyone.
The number of cars is really an irrelevant number. The number of good cars/big names and the number of ticket purchasing fans are the important numbers. I’m sure a track would rather have 8000 fans and 17 cars over 43 cars and 2000 fans.
Atomic punk, first off get away from the radioactive materials rotting your brain cells. Then, refer to the article Shawn has posted about Chase Dowling. In the article he refers to Ben Dodges #9 car as “tour type open modified”, the car everyone assumed was a NWMT modified. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that #9 car was as fast, or faster than most of the WMT cars. Point, Set, Match. Allot of “tour type open modifieds” are as fast, or faster than WMT modifieds.i seem to remember back on World Series weekend a post by Pike Mettit stating that allot of the WMT top teams had their panties in a wad when they learned that a few of the “open” motors produced 80 horsepower more than their “spec” motors for about 75% of the cost.
Oh the 01 on WMT is a very fast car,runs times as fast as a mini stock….What a joke.
I wouldn’t agree with Punks observation that the NWMT cars are faster necessarily or that speed is even that important as opposed to competitiveness.. However Tri Track was kind enough to list the motors going into the Stafford TTOMS event. The 9 of Dodge/Dowling was listed as a ” NASCAR Spec Engine ” . Seeing as how a spec engine won the Tri Track event at Stafford that would be point Punk if the Tri Track engine summary is correct.
https://racedayct.com/2020/10/power-plants-variety-of-motor-packages-at-tri-track-open-mod-series-cbyd-mod-classic-at-stafford/
Stafford has the rules listed for all their divisions except those for the open races. I’ve assumed that the engine in the 9 is a spec engine and because they’ve committed to run the Stafford opens that Stafford is changing their rules to allow pretty much all engines except SK’s for obvious reasons. I’m hoping that’s the case but we’ll see when the rules are posted.
The 9 car is very very fast. Top five car on the WMT. Stunk up the TT show at Stafford because he was that much faster. He will be a big factor on TT circuit. The big question is the handling as none of the 2021 TT events are HP tracks. It all comes down to handling. This is probably not the news Money Matt wanted to hear.
Atomic Punk, the spec engine is not as fast as an Open engine. At the dragstrip the Open car would win almost all the time. However the lighter weight of the Spec engine allows weight in the car to be positioned so it will handle better in the corners, making up for the lack of straightway speed. That’s why most WMT teams went to the Spec engines; they’re not faster, they handle better in the corners.
Ha I love how people assume they know what kinda power each combo makes, here’s my breakdown of legal #s
18deg 580-615 hp
Wmt spec 610-620 has
Steel head Dart 600-625
ALUM Head Dart 600-625
All Pro Alum 23 620-650 (rule change for 21)
18 degree is hands down the worse combo, the Allpro combo was the best Hp but now they are losing 25 hp from new carb rule, the Steelhead used to be 13.5-1 compression but now is 12-1 taking away 15-20 Hp, the Alum Dart is a good overall piece by being lighter than the Stel Head and is also allowed Try-y headers when Steel Heads are not. Overall the Wmt Spec is the best piece for handling and its not too shabby on power.
Now that assumes these motors are being policed, but truth is only a Sealed Wmt Spec is policed and all the other combos are wild wild west, alot of mix matching rule books is going on. The Dart Alum heads are not techable, you have to buy them from MRS but only person that can deem them illegal is Jack Bateman, their are no port measurements or dimensions to tech a set of heads against. The steelhead combo still has alot of 13.5 compression guys out there running because nobody is checking them.
Only series that checks compression and cubic in was the MRS, Stafford, Tri Track and Thompson opens all don’t care, nobody is gonna pull heads off a motor, only thing anybody looks at is Carbs and thats only top 3-5 after the feature, when you have 35-50 cars show up and guys are gonna be going home you better believe illegal carbs are on, illegal fuel is in, and any other qualifying odd improvers are being used in heats consis bmain. Once you are in you can decide to play by rules or hope you don’t get in tech. As I write this I can’t think of a single Open DQ ever?
While I’d agree that most of we average fans in this forum are ignorant with regard to tour type modified engines I don’t see how the information provided helps us be less so.
The 18 degree engine the worst combo by far. Yet nearly half the field at the Stafford Tri Track race were using them including Hirschman.
Tri- Y headers not allowed on steel head engine you say but the Tri Track rules say Tri- Y headers are allowed for all engine combinations.
All Pro losing HP to a new carb rule? Where?
The Dart steel head losing compression from 13.5 to 1 to 12 to 1. Max is 13.1 to 1 isn’t it? Tri Track rules show that in yellow as updated but updated starting when? Stafford’s 2020 rules have it at 12 to 1, also with a 50 lb weight penalty over 12 to 1. That’s basically Rocco’s stable of engines isn’t it with wins in Stafford opens for Rocco and Rufrano. Apparently they are winning with the weight penalty if I’m reading that right.
” H. Engine compression and displacement equipment will be present at each event.”
That’s in the Tri Track rules. And yet a compression test has never been done? Tom Fox and his staff.at Stafford looking the other way after the race?
Tri Track, Stafford and Thompson have yet to publish rules for 2021 other then the Tri Track yellow highlighting. Not questioning the fact this is all righteous just wondering where early changes appear. Bulletins to engine builders?
I have a follow up question to any people that get into the weeds on engines.
It used to be Tri Track was the key figure in designing fair open rules wasn’t it? Rules that worked on short tracks. That’s changed hasn’t it?
There will now be more open races on large tracks. I would think that puts more of a burden on Stafford and the Michaud/Mayberry group to fine tune their rules to make them fair. Perhaps even collaborate. I don’t know the fine points but you’d think they would be far different from Tri Track with regard to weight, weight displacement and perhaps carbs. Perhaps more involvement with the engine builders on basic components and processes allowed?
I guess all I’m asking is with opens on larger tracks becoming the norm, has anything significant changed with regard to the way rules changes are determined.
Yes rulebooks have rules but none are enforced so what good are they? In order to test cubic in and compression it needs to be 1st thing prior to starting motors, once motors have fired that test is no longer an option. All the open rulebooks follow MRS as a reference with some modifications. You are correct that 13-1 is supposed to be weight penalized but who is looking? Racers aren’t going to tell on them selves lol. Yes Hirschman has 18 deg but who ever deemed it legal? 18deg is most common cause of Wmt left overs. All pro carb rule has been released and open boosters are no longer allowed.
23 of the fifty plus cars at the Tri Track event have 18 degree engines and they’re mainly left overs from the NWMT. A series that favors the spec. That’s an awful lot of leftovers.
Rocco, Rufrano, Moeller and Gervais all running the Dart steel head and are getting away with the higher compression because no one is checking it? That would be very disappointing for both KRR and Stafford. I’d like to think he’s running the added weight or sticking to the 12 to 1 but it should be checked. Stafford posts what they are checking. Carbs, fuel, gear ratios, coil binding. Pretty much as you said. Everything but tests that give clues to internal engine components.
I’m sure Stafford’s rule book was based on the MRS rules going in. The NWMT rule book is meticulous in it’s detail. Otherwise Tri Track and Thompson have no detail other then to reference others rules which they modify for basic stuff only like weight and carbs. I would think at this stage Stafford would start to become the benchmark with the most detail for open rules affecting the most tour modified teams. They’re taking their sweet time rolling out the rules for 2021 so perhaps significant changes are afoot.
I don’t think we’re any less ignorant then before. If the observation is there are rules but everyone cheats and who knows what’s in the engines then we all can say that. I guess it means there is no superior engine package other then what the engine builder can cheat at and get away with. Or that if you run opens you know everyone is cheating, it’s accepted by everyone and no one is bitching about it.
I know one thing for sure. Racers always gravitate to the dominant component. That does no appear to be the case at all with engines. They all do what they need to do to get the horsepower in the range they need to be at to be competitive and let handling get them to victory lane.
Thanks for the information.
If they would allow the 18’s to raise the boosters a little they would be right there with the others.