As racing parlance goes, there’s the term, “Stinking up the show”. It’s when a driver is so ridiculously dominant it just saps all drama from an event.
On Saturday at Seekonk Speedway Matt Hirschman played the role of stinker in a way that maybe has never been seen before in a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event.
Hirschman started on the pole and led every lap on the way to victory in the Whelen Modified Tour Seekonk 150 Saturday at Seekonk Speedway.
When a caution flew on lap 114 Hirschman had at that point put 17 of the other 19 cars in the event down at least one lap. Only Doug Coby and Ron Silk were still on the lead lap with Hirschman at that point in the race.
“Pretty dominant performance,” Hirschman said. “As long as you have a car that’s going to handle and stay with you you can keep it out front, that’s the best place to be.”
It was the second consecutive Whelen Modified Tour victory for Hirschman, who won the Granite State Derby at Lee USA Speedway in Lee, N.H. on May 27. Hirschman became the first driver this season to win multiple events on the Whelen Modified Tour. Other winners this year have been Silk (New Smyrna), Austin Beers (Richmond), Coby (Monadnock) and Justin Bonsignore (Riverhead). It was the seventh career Whelen Modified Tour win for Hirschman, of Northampton, Pa.
Coby, of Milford, was a distant second and Silk, of Norwalk, third.
Despite plenty of laps at the one-third mile Seekonk bullring, Hirschman conquered the unknown that many drivers and teams had going into the event. Seekonk Speedway repaved some sections of the track during the offseason, throwing a loop for the old notebooks teams depended on for the best way around.
“I believe this was a very big unknown for a lot of teams, for all the teams, because of the pavement,” Hirschman said. “The characteristics of the track changed. I think I’m going to like it.”
It was Hirschman’s first Whelen Modified Tour victory at Seekonk, but he’s hardly been a stranger in victory lane at the facility. He has won five Open Wheel Wednesday events and two Haunted Hundred events at the track racing with the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series.
“This has always been a good track for me, not a great track,” Hirschman said. “But now winning a Whelen [Modified] Tour race here, we’ve kind of won it all here between Open Wheel Wednesday and the Haunted Hundred. We’ve won them all here with Modifieds. I guess this has been pretty good to me.”
By lap 100 Hirschman had opened a 1.8 second lead over second place Coby as he diced through lapped traffic with ease.
Bonsignore was awarded the lucky dog following the lap 114 caution to put four cars on the lead lap for the ensuing restart. A lap 134 caution gave Anthony Sesely the lucky dog to put five cars on the lead lap for the finish. The race ended with five cars on the lead lap. Finishers sixth through 10th were all one lap down behind Hirschman. Ten of the 20 cars in the field finished two laps or more behind Hirschman.
The 20-car field was the smallest starting field for the series over six events this season and the smallest ever for a Whelen Modified Tour event at Seekonk. Saturday’s race marked the 11th series event at the track since 1987.
Unoffical Results Whelen Modified Tour Seekonk 150
Money….! These guys pretty much dominate short track racing. Would love to see Money at Stafford every Friday night just like seeing Richie and Geoff back in the day
NOTHING FROM DAREAL ???.. LOL.. GOING TO HAVE MOST WINS OF ANY MOFIFIED DRIVER THIS SEASON AND WILL WIN THE MOST MONEY !!! AGAIN… !!! MOST POPULAR DRIVER ONLY SIX LAPS DOWN. A SUCSESS. HOW MANY CARS ?? 20 TSK TSK TSK…THE TOUR IS AS HEALTHY AS THE PRESIDENT !
Good thing the Dirt Late Model Dream was on Flo in parallel to this snooze fest. DaRealRacingLabs has analyzed the two races.
Cars Started (A-main): WMT 20; DLMD 26
Cars Entered: WMT 20; DLMD 96
Heat Races: WMT 0; DLMD 6 with 16 cars each
B-Main Races: WMT 0; DLMD 2 with 24 cars each
Lucky Dogs Given: WMT 2; DLMD 0
Lead Lap Cars: WMT 5; DLMD 16
Winner: WMT Matt ‘Superman’ Hirschman; DLMD Jonathan ‘Superman’ Davenport
Winner Starting Position: WMT 1; DLMD 6
Winner’s Purse: WMT $12-15k (estimate); DLMD $129,000
Last Place Purse: WMT $1,500 (estimate); DLMD $5.029
Grandstand Ticket: WMT $38; DLMD $45
Can of beer: WMT $7; DLMD $2
Let’s see what was positive about that race? The weather for one. No rain nor smoke nor gloom of night. Hirschman doing his best impression of AI intelligence. Winning last year in MMTTS in his car. Pee Dee this time around, same tactics, same result. NASCAR and Hoosier to be congratulated for their tire combinations effectively eliminated the need for a pit stop with minimal fall of after 150 laps for good handling cars. A relatively clean race, none of the points leaders experiencing a standings killing wreck getting collected in someone else’s mistake. So what’s to complain about?
Will the efficient formula that involves no pit stops help or hurt the series in the long run? NASCAR’s approach that puts the fastest cars in front, durable tires and under ideal conditions green to checkers possible. That’s actually kind of like the MRS formula but the qualifying model one rung lower on the competition ladder. MRS at least has heats. In this case with higher quality cars but the same drama killing model. Is that good for the series?
Stipulated. There’s more events this year, saving on the tire bill is important but don’t we have some wiggle room here. What’s the harm in having one mandatory pit stop like SMART does after so many laps. Freeze the field and let teams change one tire if they like and make adjustments. Or if the one tire is a deal killer at least let then make adjustments including tire position swaps.
Nope not using the B-word. No NWMT race is that. Just seeing Pee Dee so dominant over the series points leaders, supposedly the best in tour modifieds was interesting. But is that really what you want to be seeing of a regular basis? Races where Fifield goes from non competitive obstacle to a non competitive obstacle that’s a critical asset. At the least providing a bit of drama as the front runnier have to maneuver around her on a continuing basis.
The Itty-Bitty Bullring specialist wins on an itty-bitty bullring. Why is anyone surprised?
With the exception of a couple races, the NWMT has turned into an itty-bitty bullring series. Gone are the day of 9 races at Stafford and Thompson, 2 races at Loudon and a couple visits to itty-bitty bullrings.
Now, the NWMT is an Itty-Bitty-Bullring series with a couple decent horsepower tracks.
the kid in the front row put on a better race with his 12 matchbox cars. Yeah he had a short field but at least it was a competitive field. That is a couple of stinkers in a row for the tour. I am sensing a trend developing. They have to do something to change it up. You start the fastest cars upfront you can get a race with zero lead changes. Nascar has to call up some drivers and get them to the track. The field is getting a little thin and over half the field has little chance of competing for the win. No drama on who was going to win that one. I like Hirschman and was happy he is running the tour so he can show how good he is against talented drivers. Problem is he is stinking up the shows with all his talent. At one point last night he lapped up to the 4th place car. I am a MH fan and was hoping he would get a flat so he would have to come back through the field so there would be some action. The majority of the passing last night was in the parking lot with fans jockying for the exit. Positives. It looked like a good crowd. The price was under 40, a rarity these days for a NASCAR tour race, MH didnt lap all the cars. Not much damage to cars. The weather wasn’t an issue.
Dareal, you have to get off your high horse and admit, Hirschman is a great wheel man! As far as a snooze fest, I remember a couple of years back Coby was LAPPING the field in a race that ran 145+ laps with no cautions. He eventually lost out to late caution and pit strategy! I found that race to be extremely entertaining as I admired his dominance. Admire and admit, Matt is a GREAT driver!
What an amazing race! You are so right Doug!! The weather was unreal! I so wish I paid 40 or whatever to he there or watch on flo! Must see tv! 🤣🤣🤣
If you would like to re-watch the race with no sound other than the MODS…with a different one camera shot that is much different than the Flo Racing video and covers lots of battles in the field… Go to UTUBE videos and search for “Tracy’s Action Photography ” Modified Feature – Seekonk ” 6-10-2023… Pretty good take i believe… One thing for sure is Seekonk has a 2ND GROOVE AGAIN…. WOW having circled the place Thousands of times Where the BOTTOM was where you wanted to BE it’s great to see the OUTSIDE LANE FASTER than the bottom…New pavement did the TRICK … Big Money really kicked their asses in this one.. He actually had lapped everyone except the 7ny & 16 at one point. Then two cars got back on the lead lap via cautions and lucky dogs… As we talked about in the past , You needed a BIG Engine to run the TOUR back in the day .. All those races at Thompson , Stafford , NHIS , those 11 races you needed a seperate BIG TRACK engine along with small track engine to compete…This series has changed dramatically as Goodfella and us OLD timers have pointed out…
Does this mean that ” BIG MONEY ” will RUN FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP ?? There’s plenty of pole money and purse money on the TOUR ???? There has been plenty of races that Richie & Bugsy & Kenny & Freddy have lapped the field back in the day .. Not that many in the last 15 years or so … Coby almost did it until the yellow came out as was pointed out already…Big money has the springs and shocks set in the old school style that most have abandoned nowadays .. tiny spring with spring rubber just enough to hold car up with super duper expensive shocks that hold the car down .. maybe some will transfer back to the PRO shocks… LOL .. Big Money has it figured out for sure.. He trashed the field and probably would have lapped everyone if not for the last 2 yellows… You just don’t see that too often in the modern era.. but Big Money has now 2 Wins in a row , will the # 60 show up at Riverhead or will He show up with helmet and firesuit and jump back in the Car on the Island Owned by some other car Owner with the # 60 on it …??? One thing is for sure , Big Money is super Talented Driver, Super Talented Chassis tuner . Of that their can be no DEBATE… Love or Hate him , He can wheel a race car and uses strategy to HIS advantage like few can… Big Money is a SPECIAL TALENT much like his FATHER , Tony , quiet , humble and hardly ever wrecked while driving the # 3 for Lenny , And how many TITLES did Tony WIN ?? 4 or 5 .. I pretty sure one was driving the # 48 for a different team … Well Tony was a FANTASTIC Driver also …. I guess the APPLE doesn’t FALL far from the TREE…. Only going to get more interesting as the season unfolds … I can’t wait ….
Well well well,can a fork be stuck into the precious WMT?If it is so lucrative why only 19 cars?Pathetic I say but very laughable…Is this Seekonk’s substitute to the Haunted Hundred? Seems like greed has the best of Seekonk…good riddance to the tour,it’s the only way the 01 gets a top 15…BTW,was in Central PA of Memorial Day weekend..2 nights I paid $35 for pit admission,the other was $40 ,paying 29k to win.40 plus 410 sprint cars 2 nights along with sprint car support divisions of 42 and 26….$1.50 for a hot dog,not $6 or $7 like around here….Stick a fork in em….
Look, if the 60 was not in the race, and it was all NWMT regulars, you schmucks would be all on here complaining about how the race was a heaping pile of flaming 💩.
Hirschman is an itty-bitty bullring specialist, no more. He get’s lucky once in a while on horsepower tracks that are bigger than his comfort zone itty-bitty teeny-weenie bullrings, big deal.
Hirshman won on an itty-bitty bullring, that’s what he does. His business depends on it. He effectively runs a house car focused on itty-bitty bullrings.
This will sound crazy, but I’d bet it would work. Either make the race longer or the tires worse which would pretty much require a pit stop of some kind. Even if the outcome was the same the race itself might be more entertaining. It was good watching the leaders, try to pass lapped cars battling for position, but if the tires fell off quicker there would be more incentive to stop for tires, and more battles up front.
Without infield pitting it gets too dangerous to have them pull into the pits, change a tire then battle to get back onto the track without losing a lap and/or wrecking each other in the pits
I dunno. But im thinking stats dont lie.
Matt has won in bull rings and oswego, new symrna, stafford ect, and they are not bull rings. Just seems to me , it doesn’t matter the venue. If there is a good payday to be had, he is there. And always, a threat to get it done.
Tour, opens, whatever. He has stepped up.
I’m really not a fan, but my eyes don’t lie, this guy can just plain get it done, bullring, larger tracks, and everything in between. Tour drivers, open drivers. He challenges them all.
So who is going to step up to challenge him on a consistent basis? So far, that needs to be determined..,,,,,
No doubt Matt is great blows the doors off the top tour teams but when he’s off like Manadnock nobody says anything let him show up at New Hampshire Motor Speedway out of no where let’s see if he spanks every one.
No pitting and live pits stops with positions at stake are not the only choices.
Comparing the NWMT races at Seekonk before and after the paving changes is quite dramatic. Hugging the apron in the turns then arcing out to the wall seems to be gone. They kiss turn one then arc right out to the wall. In traffic looks like the low lane is where it’s hard to keep up.
That race not the best showcase for the tour mods on the rejiggered surface. Hopefully the MMTTS event will be more competitive.