LEE, N.H. – After 23 years away, the cars of the Whelen Modified Tour returned to the historic and gritty Lee USA Speedway bullring on Saturday afternoon.
Finding the fastest way around the .375-mile oval in practice in preparation for the Granite State Derby was Matt Hirschman.
Hirschman, of Northampton, Pa., led the way in practice with a fast lap of 14.785 seconds (91.309 mph).
Hirschman, making his second series start of the season, won the season opening Whelen Modified Tour event at New Smyrna (Fla.) Speedway on Feb. 12.
Saturday’s race marks the division’s sixth appearance at Lee and first since Ed Flemke Jr. won at the track in 1998.
Doug Coby of Milford, making his second consecutive start for Tommy Baldwin Racing, was second fastest during the one-hour practice at 14.795 seconds (91.247 mph). Coby, the six-time series champion who is running part-time in 2022, won the most previous Whelen Modified Tour event, the Miller Lite 200 Saturday at Riverhead (N.Y.) Raceway.
Jake Johnson of Rehoboth, Mass, who made his series debut last week at Riverhead, was third fastest in practice at 14.858 seconds (90.860).
JB Fortin (14.875 seconds) and Ron Silk (14.890 seconds) rounded out the top-five of the 19-cars that took time during the session.
Where’d the live timing go, that used to be on the NASCAR Hometracks site?
Dareal;
Sometimes Happens when its a jvd production. Obvious disconnect. Way back in the first jvd produced tour race, Sap called them out about posting, streaming, timing issues, but was labeled as a whiner….
Bobf, I see what you are saying, but the NASCAR Modified website is lacking, worse than ever, and trending worse. Less and less info, taking longer for anything to get posted. The OWNERS, participants and fans deserve so much better.
Point taken Dareal.
But I do think when someone else produces the race though, that it somehow must add another layer, where its possible that some things like timing, posting, can slip through cracks, and really, it shouldn’t.
I don’t think the promoter is given control of the NASCAR website, or at least I don’t think the promoter *should* be given control of the NASCAR website to provide the practice, qual, and race timing and other real time race info. This is statistics that I’m sure NASCAR owns the rights to. NASCAR needs to retain control over the stats for their records.