Doug Coby has amassed an impressive statistical resume over 21 year of competition on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour.
Coby is a six-time Whelen Modified Tour champion and Saturday’s victory was his 34th with the series.
Despite running a part-time schedule in 2022, Coby is looking at adding another milestone statistical anomaly to his series resume this season.
With his victory at Langley Speedway Saturday Doug Coby moved from 11th to 9th in the 2022 series driver standings.
Coby has run eight of 12 events this season, with seven of those starts coming for Tommy Baldwin Racing and team owner Tommy Baldwin Jr.
Coby is expected to run the final four events this season, which will have him ending the season starting 75 percent of the scheduled 16 events. Coby likely can’t gain enough to move beyond ninth in the standings, but is almost assured of finishing ninth or 10th in the standings by starting the final four events.
The last driver to finish in the top-10 in the Whelen Modified Tour driver’s standings having started less than 85 percent of the scheduled events was the late Tom Baldwin Sr. in 1991. Tom Baldwin Sr. started 19 of 23 events (83 percent) in 1991 and finished 10th in the driver standings.
In series history only five drivers have started less than 85 percent of the scheduled events in a season and finished in the top-10 in the driver standings.
In 1988 George Kent started 20 of 24 events (83 percent) and finished 10th in the standings. In 1985 Dave Rezendes ran 20 of 25 events (80 percent) and finished 10th in the standings. In the inaugural year of the series in 1985 Jerry Cranmer ran 20 of 29 events (69 percent) and was ninth in the standings. Corky Cookman also ran 20 of 29 events in 1985 and was 10th in the standings.
Over 36 completed seasons since 1985 on the Whelen Modified Tour there have been 22 occasions when a driver or multiple drivers have finished in the the top-10 in the driver standings without starting all the events on the schedule.
The most notable instance of a driver not completing all events on the schedule came in 1997 when seven-time series champion, the late Mike Stefanik, started 22 of 23 events and won the championship. In 2013 Coby started 13 of 14 events and finished second to Ryan Preece in the driver standings.
Despite never coming close to finishing on a lead lap, the 01 has a chance to finish in the top 10.
The 01 finishing anywhere near the top 10 in points would be an embarrassment for the tour.
Melissa is definitely good for the Whelen Modified Tour. She show up for every race and competes. She finishes ahead of Dennis the Bicycle Racer every time.
Melissa is also a three time winner of the Whelan Modified Tour Most Popular Driver Award. She won it three consecutive times!
Go girl, go!
The tour is an embarrassment, 19 entries ay Langley what a joke.
Congratulations to Doug on a dominating win, Also I was really surprised that there were no southern modified drivers entered especially with the race being in Virginia you’d think they would’ve supported the track.
I’m no mathematician but I have a feeling we don’t have to worry about the 01 cracking the top 10 in points anytime soon.
I understand that the 01 is slow… like REALLY slow. I’ve seen all the stats people have posted over the years and they are impressively poor for an impressively long time. Completely get why she is such a hot topic especially when you role in the most popular driver award. Plus she’s a girl which also brings eyes to her as well.
With all that said, one slight glimmer of improvement I have noticed is her qualifying. Live it used to look like she was running pace laps but now she’s at least semi close to the other regular backmarkers. I think she’s actually even qualified ahead of Sutcliffe the past few races. Don’t really have the stats to back it up but it seems like it takes a touch longer for her to get lapped as well. Could just be how cautions are falling. I am not including bullrings in this observation. Places like riverhead and monadnock it is truly an embarrassment for her.
I’m always a sucker for the back markers having success like when Cole and McDonald both cracked the top 10 a few years back at Seekonk. Even this past race watching Tomaino really racing on the lead lap and Heagy snagging a top 10… I love it for them
Little bit of a tangent, but curious if anyone else noticed from the eyeball test that she looks a hair better than she’s been. It’s obviously not close to good enough and clearly she wouldn’t even make shows back in the day when car counts were higher. But figured it was worth mentioning
RaceDayNH,
You are correct in your assessment that it’s unlikely she will finish in the top-10 in the driver standings. Right now she has 244 points after 12 events and sits 15th in the standings. She is averaging a bit over 20 points per race this season. At that pace she should finish this season with about 325 points. Doug Coby is in ninth in the standings right now with 330 points and will run the final four events of the season. JB Fortin is 10th in the standings with 317 points and is likely to run the final four events. So mathematically, based on Coby and Fortin running more events this year, it’s highly improbable that she has any chance of cracking the top-10 in driver points this season.
He’s the Cobynator. The Dougernaut. So dreamy and yet it’s Fifield that beats him again. First three comments here and she’s catnip on social media. It’s no contest. Clearly the most popular driver on the Tour.
What a marvelous analysis. Coby just blew by Sapienza and Fortin to land at no. 9 in the standings. Now he hits the wall as the article points out. K Bonsignor is running well and Lutz in the 82 all of a sudden is a team to be reckoned with both with huge points differentials. As “milestone statistical anomaly(s)” go this has to be considered the light version. To be kind you’re clearing a bar that includes Fortin, Sapienza, McDonald, very part time Emerling and Sutcliffe. The accomplishment not quite in the same league as the days of yore. It was 1988, not 1987 Kent came in 10th and he did it beating guys like Anderson, Ewnitsko and Park.
OK that all aside what’s the money motivation here and more importantly how does it get split up? Speaking of blowing past, Baldwin, Coby and Blewett blew past the recent race controversy at lightning speed and can’t help but wonder if all three are singing the same tune. Show me the money! That and professionalism yadda, yadda, yadda. Baldwin is nothing if not smart and his criticism while just viewing his car turned to junk muted so I’m thinking money. The owner getting the most money and maybe the lions share of Coby’s considering the wrecked car plus Coby relevant this year owing to one Mr. Tommy Baldwin.
Final five races including big travel, big travel, home cooking, easy peasy and big travel. Brutal. Luckily Shotgun Joe’s remarkable performance as president includes a serious effort to reign in the price of gas.
Doug,
Good catch on Kent in 1988 not 1997.
why do we continue to talk about the 01 ??? just gives more attention to a driver with an agenda that has little to do with racing (in my opinion)..
RacedayNH, despite Melissa effectively jamming the voting for “Most Popular Driver” 3 years in a row and causing the award to be dropped by the WMT, I gotta admit I agree with you. She does seem to be actually running a little better this year, staying on the lead lap a little longer and being ahead of a couple of teams that were usually ahead of her previously. It was nice to see here hang in there at Thompson for about 20 laps before getting lapped. Previously it took only 10-12 laps for that to happen. Seemed like she was on the throttle more in qualifying as well.
Congratulations to Tommy Baldwin Jr. for putting out some impressive cars lately. Now he needs to put up and coming talent in those cars. He’d really be doing something if he were to develop drivers to seed the future of modified racing.
AlJ, I definitely hear you on that and was hesitant to post on it myself. Was just thinking it would be nice if she could get to a level where she wasn’t such a distraction and the only way that’s gonna happen is if she gets faster.
The other backmarkers get a little more leeway because they race at a reasonable pace and don’t completely live down on the apron. Also, some have proven success outside the tour that shows they are a competent driver.
At least she hasn’t had an incident with a lead lap car that impacted a front running team in a major way… at Thompson a couple weeks back when Gary McDonald took a right hand turn into goodale in the middle of the front stretch while the #58 was running P2, the response would have been a little different if that was the 01 and rightfully so… Just hoping she’s creeping towards making her performance not so cringe worthy
Dareal, I vote for Mike Jr. back in it for a few more WMT races.
I was at Thompson for the Whelen Modified Tour race. I think the 01 was lapped after 23 or 24 green flag laps. That was the first Tour race I went to in a while. I was impressed! Melissa ran well! She ran on the racing line, not down on the bottom! It was refreshing! Very impressed!
Oh, the humanity!!!
2022 Season Statistics
Goodale and Beers have run the most laps this season at 1,990
McKennedy collects points at 37.83 per race.
12 races so far.
Sutcliffe
Races: 10
Laps: 1,424
Points: 258
Laps per Race: 142.4
Points per Race: 25.8
MacDonald
Races: 11
Laps: 1,711
Points: 267
Laps per Race: 155.5
Points per Race: 24.3
Heagy
Races: 8
Laps: 1,200
Points: 217
Laps per Race: 150
Points per Race: 27.1
Fifield
Races: 12
Laps: 822
Points: 244
Laps per Race: 68.5
Points per Race: 20.3
How is the 01 getting better????? Was it really that much worse????
For every race that Sutcliffe, Emerling, McDonald, or Sap are no-shows, or have a bad race (early DNF), the 01 has a very good chance of moving up.
How else does a car that has an average starting position of 23.3 and an average finishing position of 23.7 move up in the points BUT through the attrition of the rest of the field????
McDonald, Heagy and Sutcliffe all have a higher average finish than their average start.
So at the current pace, the 01 is expected to finish with 325 points.
To finish above 325 points…
Heagy has 217 pts… needs 109 pts, or 27.25 points per remaining 4 races
Sutcliffe has 258 pts … needs 68 pts, or 17 points per remaining 4 races
McDonald has 267 pts … needs 59 pts, or 14.5 pts per remaining 4 races
That assumes those three run all remaining 4 races. Sutcliffe and McDonald might be able to get away with running only 3 more races each to overtake the 01. Heagy needs to run all 4 cleanly and a bit above his average points per race.
Emerling runs at 33.25 pts per race. He needs to run at least two more races (cleanly) to stay above the 01.
Okay, a top 10 is out of reach for the 01, especially if Sap can hit 325 points soon, he can probably lock up P11 and the best the 01 can realize is P12. Fortin only needs 9 pts to exceed the season points total the 01 is expected to get. But so much depends on Heagy, McDonald and Sutcliffe. Sap should be able to get 36 points in the next four races, and lock out the 01 from P11.
The only way the 01 moves up in points is by the attrition and bad luck of the other cars. What a way to compete. To be hoping cars don’t show up or fall out of a race long before you must really suck. Can’t see how that is fun at all.
All she is after 15 to 20 laps is a moving chicane for the leaders.Biggest joke of all…
Dareal, as hard as it might be to believe possible, her performance this year has looked better than in previous years. Her “laps run before getting lapped” has definitely improved at some tracks.
Fast, I’m trying to figure out if you are serious, or incredibly hilarious. Sarcasm is hard to detect in this format.
Some car is getting lapped in 11 laps now instead of 8 laps. Okay…
Is getting lapped in 11 laps really an achievement over getting lapped in 8 laps?
Is that how low this has gone?
🤣 🤣 😝 😝 🤣 🤣 😆 😆
I saw her Father is no longer listed as Crew Chief…..Jake Marosz is now the listed Crew Chief ….
Didn’t we hAve this discussion when they released the Whalen schedule? Pretty much most people thought the number of teams following the tour would go down drastically with the world tour that this regionAl series was about to embark upon. Add in some record high gas prices parts shortages and you got some short fields. The racing been pretty good and J bon didn’t walk away with the championship like many thought he would. Overall not bad
Happy they’ll be at the world series but it should also be where the champion is crowned. Not a week or whatever later in Martinsville.
Thanks Suitcase, didn’t catch that previously. That may be the difference. He worked and drove with Wade Cole if I remember right.
Dareal, I am trying to recognize her better performance, regardless of how small it may be. Everyone has their own goals, and some may be small and insignificant (and laughable) to most people. However, improvement can be a big deal to the achiever, regardless of how small it may be. I always enjoy seeing the smaller teams have a good run and seeing the underdog teams do well.
Nice to see a little regard for Fifield seeping into the thread.
The woman has been loyal to the NWMT since 2014 if you can believe it. God she loves it so. Maybe it helps her sell cars at her dealership. Got an award from popular NH Governor Sununu for her help with driver safety. Does other outreach as well. I’d buy a used car from her for sure.
In the end the NWMT is an entertainment choice. An expensive way of recreating but so is owning a boat. In the best case it took the 01 team 12 hours to get from Sanbornville, NH to Langley. For whatever reason a bunch of other people join her to help field the car so their loyalty and shared enjoyment shouldn’t be ignored either.
The laps completed compared to other drivers in her tier is staggering it’s so off the mark. On the other hand if she bothers you so much then it’s a good thing she has a tendency to retire or be retired early in races. We call that cup half full.
If it’s so important to show some measure of success in competition I do believe that unlike in prior years there is a glimmer now as was mentioned by the more astute contributors to this thread.
Qualifying for 4 out of the last five events.
Wall…..Fifield 13.761, Sutcliffe 13.874
Clairemont…..Fifield 15.156, Sutcliffe 15.20
Thompson….Fifield 20.225, Sutcliffe 21.581
Langley…. Fifield 16.68, Sutcliffe 17.244, Tomaino 18.48
Granted taking 9 years to demonstrate a flicker of competitiveness over a number of races is a long time to wait but it is there.
Wherever the team comes in they deserve the reward in my view mostly because of all the drives they’ve taken like the 12 plus hour one to Langley.
No matter what I or anyone else says, watch her. I have seen a massive improvement. I can’t wait for a great show at Stafford on Friday with my dad, and a good show at Waterford solo. All three tracks are fun right now.