Former NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion Ron Silk and the Kevin Stuart Motorsports team will part ways following the final Whelen Modified Tour event of 2021 on Sept. 25 at Stafford Speedway.
Silk informed team owner Kevin Stuart recently of his decision to leave the team to focus his efforts in 2022 with the Haydt-Yannone Racing team. Silk has run selected events away from the Whelen Modified Tour with HYR since the 2020 season.
Silk – the 2011 Whelen Modified Tour champion – has competed for Kevin Stuart Motorsports since 2017 on the Whelen Modified Tour.
“I really appreciate what Kevin Stuart and those guys have done for me and the amount of effort they’ve put in with what they’ve done,” Silk said. “It started as a part-time thing and it turned into something more than that. We’ve had some really successful times and some other times where we had bad luck. But the bottom line is, I didn’t have a ride when they called me and I’ll always be very appreciative of everything that all of those guys did for me. Unfortunately, just like anything in life, nothing lasts forever.”
Silk is currently third in the Whelen Modified Tour series standings and coming off a victory in the most recent series event, on Aug. 21 at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough, Maine. In 10 races this season Silk has one win, four top-five’s and seven top-10’s. He sits 63 points behind series leader Justin Bonsignore with four events remaining this year.
“I know they want to continue racing this year and I want to do my best job possible for them and race for more wins this year,” Silk said.
Stuart said he’s unclear what his teams plans will be for the 2022 season.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Stuart said. “We might just keep one car and run some open shows. We might get rid of everything. I really don’t know. I just want to finish the year and see what happens.”
Silk said the Haydt-Yannone team is still deciding what their plans will be for the 2022 season.
“I don’t know exactly what we’re going to do because of honestly the state the [Whelen Modified Tour] is right now,” Silk said. “I think we need to see what the schedules and stuff will be. I think that’s the goal, to go Tour racing, but also we’ve got to see what makes sense for the team and what doesn’t.”
Silk connected with Stuart in 2017 to run the last three races of the Whelen Modified Tour season. In 2018 the team ran nine of 16 Whelen Modified Tour events together with three top-five finishes and five top-10’s.
The team went full-time together on 2019 and in the second event of the season – at South Boston (Va.) Speedway – Silk brought Kevin Stuart Motorsports its first Whelen Modified Tour victory. The team also recorded victories that year in the July event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and the August event at Stafford Speedway. Silk ended up third in the series standings in 2019.
Despite only running eight of nine events in 2020, the team ended up fifth in the series standings with two victories, five top-five’s and seven top-10’s.
The 38-year old Silk made his first Whelen Modified Tour start in 2003. He has 16 series victories over 212 starts. He has finished in the top-five of the series standings eight times over 10 full-time seasons on the Whelen Modified Tour.
Ouch.
Sometimes following Silk is like the trying to keep track of the Kardashians…
At least they have some time to think about next year.But my thinking is that something is not clicking between the parties.The 16 has really not been that competitive this year with the exception of the Icebreaker win.Something is not jiving.
Icebreaker -1st
Monadnock 5/5- 5th
Star 5/22-5th
Star 7/24-5th
Monadnock 8/14-18th 4 laps down
Seekonk 8/25-6th
Second in points in Tri Track series.
I wouldn’t say not competitive but that’s subjective.
Ron Silk makes cars better. He had success in the Bob Horn 50 that they have not repeated since and the Stuart team became successful with Ron Silk driving. He moved on or is moving on from each for reasons only he knows. On the surface the 16 team is not that active so it’s perplexing but you can bet there are good reasons for Silk doing what he’s doing.
On 8/22 Kevin Stuart Motorsports had a nice Facebook post celebrating their win and didn’t appear to know this was coming. They no doubt are disappointed judging from their comments but with time that may change. It’s a great car and they will be taking calls from interested drivers and some may even bring some sponsorship and money.
HYR want to go “Tour” racing. It could very well be the NWMT ends up plus one by the start of next season with a really good team to boot.
Did not see that coming
The 85 needs a good young gun with a good crew chief